In March, my daughter Jessica and I submitted a panel proposal to the
Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2007.
Hopper 2007 will be held October 17-20 in Orlando, Florida. Our panel title
is “Girl Geeks in High School – Technical Experiences of Future Inventors”. The
2007 Hopper conference theme is “I Invent the Future”.
Jessica and (I hope) at least one other girl from
Harker High School will join the panel. I also just received a confirmation in email
from a potential panelist who goes to Castilleja
girls’ school. (My department’s summer intern also attends Castilleja High School.) In
addition, there are several girls also interested in participating who
attend Palo Alto High School (“Paly”), where my son is a
Freshman.
If our panel is accepted, it will include young women from a range of educational
backgrounds: both private and public high schools, girls-only and co-educational schools.
Some of the girls will have just started their Freshman college year. This panel will
present the views and stories of young women from the unique technical environment of
the Silicon Valley about what it is like to grow up geeky. We hope this will help the
audience understand more about what is possible: the current state of high school
technical education for girls in some of the best schools in one of the most technical
places in the world.
The October 2006 Hopper conference included a panel called “Priming the Pipeline – Girls
Speak Out About Pre-College Computer Science” which was remarkably well attended –
standing room only! In October 2006, there were many more questions for the four girl panelists
than time allowed. Since then, there have been two books published aimed at understanding women
in technology and how they got there: She’s Such a Geek! Women Write About Science,
Technology & Other Nerdy Stuff (2006, Newitz & Anders) and Changing Our World –
True Stories of Women Engineers (2006, Hatch).
This indicates a strong continuing interest in how girls become geeks and what prepares
them to grow up to be innovative Engineers and Scientists.
Hopper is an amazing annual conference for women in computing. I have presented two
Hopper panels in past years, both on mentoring. I very much hope this panel proposal
is accepted. Hopper offers many activities, panels, and talks aimed at
undergrads as well as to benefit women with jobs in computer science, both in industry and
academia. Usually, there are more students (grad and undergrad) than any other category of
Hopper attendees. Hopper offers 1-day registrations and computing scholarships – see
http://gracehopper.org/2007/participate/scholarships-student/ – as well as
regular registrations.
The young women on our panel are sure to have an excellent and educational experience.
KatysBlog 