Your Weekend Tech Digest: Michelle Obama empowers young girls toward tech careers, Gov. Inslee gives self-driving cars the green light

By Tian DuBelko

We round up the trending stories every week so you can catch up on the top tech news. This week, Michelle Obama encouraged young girls to pursue careers in tech at Apple’s WWDC, Gov. Jay Inslee signed off on self-driving cars, tech leaders agreed to meet at the White House later this month, and Snapchat parent Snap acquired a Seattle-based location tracking startup for $200M. Get your weekly recap here, then head over to our blog for more stories.

Former first lady Michelle Obama empowers girls at Apple’s WWDC

James Martin via CNET

On Tuesday, Michelle Obama made an appearance at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference and gave a rousing speech that emphasized the need to encourage young girls to pursue careers in tech. She acknowledged the tech industry’s lack of diversity and stressed the importance and access to education for young girls around the world.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee greenlights self-driving cars

Marc Miller via Twitter

Gov. Inslee signed an order that could allow for self-driving cars to begin testing in Washington in less than two months. With this order, self-driving car companies can apply for self-driving car pilot program tests on public streets. If these tests prove to be successful, future autonomous cars can drastically bring down the rate of motor vehicle crashes caused by driver error.

Tech leaders plan to visit White House for American Technology Council

Drew Angerer via Getty Images

Leaders of tech firms including Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos,  Apple CEO Tim Coo, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella plan to visit the White House this month. The visit will be the first meeting of a Jared Kushner-led council aimed at transforming and modernizing government digital services. Other expected topics include cloud computing and technology for the government.

Snap acquires Seattle location-tracking startup Placed for $200M

Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, has recently acquired Placed, a location tracking startup based in Seattle, for $200 million. Operating out of Seattle, Placed has more than 100 employees that work to measure the offline influence of their mobile ads and gain customer insights into how customers behave in response to advertising.

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