Aussie Scholars visit Grace Hopper Conference
1500 women technologists in one room: this is the 2008 Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) of Women in Computing ! As one of a number of Google A...
https://iskablogs.blogspot.com/2008/10/aussie-scholars-visit-grace-hopper.html
1500 women technologists in one room: this is the 2008 Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) of Women in Computing! As one of a number of Google Australia Anita Borg scholars, I was sent to this year’s GHC as part of the scholarship. Held in Keystone, Colorado, nestled in the beautiful Rocky Mountains at an elevation of about 9300 feet (just less than 3000m), GHC participants are urged to drink plenty of water to ward off altitude sickness; but, feeling woozy and out of breath from simply walking up stairs doesn't deter me from jumping headfirst into the networking, technical, and career development sessions!
GHC was unlike any other technical conference that I have been to before. With only a handful of men present (quite the opposite of a typical engineering conference), participants were a range of ages and from different technical backgrounds - be they students, academics or industry professionals (or all of the above!). The sessions covered a wide variety of professional development and technical topics, from petaflop computing to projects helping the developing world. Also, social activities and networking were as integral to the conference schedule as the technical sessions.
Universities and industry, invited to hold stalls at the conference, lined the foyer with information about graduate programs, internships and job opportunities; not to the mention the plethora of freebies including T-shirts, pens, water bottles, notebooks, bags, lip gloss, Rubik's cubes and rubber duckies (holding laptops, no less!). Armed with only a backpack, I ended up having to return a few of the freebies as they just wouldn't fit!
GHC gave me the chance to share experiences and ideas with other Google scholars (from the US, Latin America, and Canada), undergraduate and graduate students, academics and women from the computer technology industry - including Googlers! It was a really motivating experience to be in a room with so many like-minded women who share a passion for technology; from just one of the keynotes I walked away inspired and amazed by how much one woman had achieved with the OLPC project!
My thanks to Google for the scholarship which made my first trip to the US possible, and without which I might not have heard about GHC. I've taken home with me the importance of having mentors and a strong support network, ideas and opportunities for after study (a second PhD!), inspiration for innovative technology that can help change the world, and the knowledge that there is always more than one path to achieve what you really want.
GHC was unlike any other technical conference that I have been to before. With only a handful of men present (quite the opposite of a typical engineering conference), participants were a range of ages and from different technical backgrounds - be they students, academics or industry professionals (or all of the above!). The sessions covered a wide variety of professional development and technical topics, from petaflop computing to projects helping the developing world. Also, social activities and networking were as integral to the conference schedule as the technical sessions.
Universities and industry, invited to hold stalls at the conference, lined the foyer with information about graduate programs, internships and job opportunities; not to the mention the plethora of freebies including T-shirts, pens, water bottles, notebooks, bags, lip gloss, Rubik's cubes and rubber duckies (holding laptops, no less!). Armed with only a backpack, I ended up having to return a few of the freebies as they just wouldn't fit!
GHC gave me the chance to share experiences and ideas with other Google scholars (from the US, Latin America, and Canada), undergraduate and graduate students, academics and women from the computer technology industry - including Googlers! It was a really motivating experience to be in a room with so many like-minded women who share a passion for technology; from just one of the keynotes I walked away inspired and amazed by how much one woman had achieved with the OLPC project!
My thanks to Google for the scholarship which made my first trip to the US possible, and without which I might not have heard about GHC. I've taken home with me the importance of having mentors and a strong support network, ideas and opportunities for after study (a second PhD!), inspiration for innovative technology that can help change the world, and the knowledge that there is always more than one path to achieve what you really want.
