Sometimes innovation dies. A person's work can go on to have a life of it's own, but the raw spark of energy that brings innovation to life, comes and goes. Saw Yu Wai, my beloved co-founder of DNA Guide, was such a spark.
Saw Yu came to Silicon Valley from Burma and finished a Masters in GIS at San Jose State in the early 90's. She worked on many of the very first web based maps (Stanford Campus map, City of Oakland Crime Map, Sex Offender Map for Santa Clara County) and went on to build hundreds of prototypes over the years. More recently she was working on 3D spatial & topological analysis of full genomes. Her last project was a map of her own tumor dnapancreas.com
We were good friends for 17 years. The last time I saw her we shared how lucky we felt as women to have our autonomy and the freedom to build whatever we wanted. By far, the most joyful and satisfying moments of my career was time spent working side by side with her. I'm devastated by her departure
Saw Yu was brilliant and kind, forever generous with her time and expertise. She will be missed!
Alice
