Barbara Horne

Barbara Horne AUP Board and Information Technology

Barbara is an accomplished leader with a career spanning Information Technology, project management, community activism, and international representation. With a passion for technology and social justice, Barbara’s career reflects a dedication to leveraging her expertise to drive both organizational success and societal change.

In her early years she was an honor student who studied dance and ran track. Before graduating from high school, she attended Carnegie Mellon University’s Advanced Placement Early Acceptance program, where she focused on Math and Chemistry. At 19, while attending Rutgers College, Barbara co-founded BluEnke, a publishing and production company focused on amplifying the voices of Black women through poetry, journalism, and spoken word throughout New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia and DC.

Barbara’s activism took root during her time at Rutgers, where she was a vocal participant in campaigns for civil rights, including opposing the unconstitutional “Party without a Permit Law” and advocating for New Brunswick’s first Elected School Board. She was also a founding member of the New Brunswick Coalition Against Police Brutality.

Barbara's career in Information Technology began in the late when she contracted as an applications and web trainer for major institutions such as Deutsche Bank, the Federal Reserve, and NJIT. Her technical expertise brought her to Goldman Sachs in 2004, where she served as an IT consultant, designing and delivering training on mobile applications and project management while developing IT solutions to support business processes.

A lifelong Entrepreneur, in 2009, Barbara founded Liquids and Eats Cafe and Savory Fusion Food Service, a community hub that provided healthy food options while serving as a platform for arts, technology, and health-focused programs. This community-building ethos extended into her work with the United Nations when she joined the NGO Athletes United for Peace, advocating for economic justice and women's rights. During this time, she also consulted and trained scientists and tech professionals at Harvard's Smithsonian Astrophysics Observatory.
A respected speaker and thought leader, Barbara was invited to present at global conferences such as Cloud Connect China, Interop Las Vegas, QCon Tokyo, and QCon Beijing, where she delivered a keynote on her firm’s methodology, DRIVE, in 2015. In 2019, she trained employees across the U.S. on Data Transformation, Automation, Visualization, Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Natural Language (NL) tools. Her work has empowered organizations to deliver data and analytics projects with cutting-edge business intelligence solutions.

Barbara is the founder of Ngaage, an emerging digital platform uniting people and organizations to champion a just and equitable society through legislative and grassroots efforts that uphold fundamental human rights.

Ngaage is a tool to help move us towards a society that centers on ensuring the basic needs of people are met, while understanding that each decision must respect our dependence on and relationship with the planet.

She holds a 1st Dan in Shotokan under the JKA and was a longstanding member of the NY Women’s CKC.