Barbara Horne

AUP BOARD, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY OFFICER and UNITED NATIONS REPRESENTATIVE, 1ST DAN SHOTOKAN

From early on, Barbara studied dance and ran track. Before graduating from high school, she attended Carnegie Mellon University’s Advanced Placement Early Acceptance program. At 19, while attending Rutgers College, she co-founded BluEnke, a publishing and production company that published books of poetry, a news magazine, and produced shows throughout NJ, NY, and the surrounding areas. The company's primary focus was on the writings of Black women.

Barbara actively participated in numerous campaigns, including opposing the unconstitutional "Party without a Permit Law" and advocating for "the Battle for New Brunswick's Elected School Board." Furthermore, she was a founding member of the New Brunswick Coalition Against Police Brutality.

From the late 90s to the early 2000s, Barbara leveraged her Information Technology (IT) skills, contracting as an applications and web trainer at various businesses and institutions across the United States. These included Deutsche Bank, the Federal Reserve, and the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). In 2004, she joined Goldman Sachs as an Information Technology Consultant. There, she designed, developed, and delivered mobile application and project management training, alongside IT solutions.

In 2009, Barbara opened Liquids and Eats Cafe and Savory Food Service in her hometown of Hanover, bringing healthy food options and fostering a hub for art, tech, and health community programs. Between 2010 and 2011, she provided project management training and consulting to scientists and technology professionals at Harvard’s Smithsonian’s Astrophysics Observatory. Concurrently, she developed IT solutions to bridge the United Nations with local communities and subsequently joined the UN NGO, Athletes United for Peace.

In 2015, Barbara was invited to speak at several events: Cloud Connect China, Interop Las Vegas, QCon Tokyo, and she gave a keynote at QCon Beijing, discussing her firm's methodology, DRIVE. In 2019, she instructed a team that trained thousands of employees across the U.S. on various subjects: Data Transformation, Data Automation, Data Visualization, Robotic Process Automation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Natural Language (NL). The team offered intensive courses in Alteryx, Tableau, and UI Path and provided consultation on aligning projects with the most suitable data and BI applications.

She holds a 1st Dan ranking under JKA and was a longstanding member of the NY Center Club until its closure in 2014. Currently, she serves as the UN representative for Athletes United, championing key issues such as Economic Justice and Women's Rights.