Established by family and friends in honour of Molly (Innes) Higginson, this bursary will be awarded annually by the Ban Righ Women’s Centre to an undergraduate or graduate student in the STEM disciplines, with a preference for students in Mathematics or Computer Science. 

Molly grew up happily at Trailynd, her family’s dairy farm near Brantford. Her love of learning brought her to Queen’s University where she graduated with an Honours degree in Mathematics with a minor in Philosophy in 1966. After graduation, Molly and her fiancé Bill Higginson joined CUSO for a 2-year teaching posting to East Africa. Molly appreciated her time in Uganda and the chance to teach advanced mathematics to young women at Trinity College Nabbingo, where she and Bill were married.

In the late 1960s, Molly discovered a passion for computer programming, landed a job as a developer in Cambridge UK, and completed a master’s degree in computer science at the University of Alberta. Returning to Kingston, Molly worked as a research assistant in the Queen’s Math department before co-founding the software firm Andyne Computing in 1973, where, for the next 25 years, she developed a successful graphical query language for database software. Andyne grew for many years before being acquired by Hummingbird and then by Open Text. Next Molly joined a local start-up, iGO, to develop software for computer assisted orthopedic surgery. 

Always compassionate and community-minded, Molly volunteered with many organizations, including the Kingston Arts Council, John Howard Society, Canadian-Cuban Friendship Association, Kingston Grandmother’s Connection, and the Osu Children’s Library Fund – after retiring in 2003, she travelled to Accra to help coordinate the construction of the Nungua Community Library. Molly was Chair of the Ban Righ Foundation Board from 1998-2000.