Yesterday was the third and last of the
Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (aka GHC 2008),
in Keystone, Colorado. Sun had 37 staff participate, including 14
presenters and panelists. As usual, there were too many excellent
events overlapping but I very much enjoyed those I attended.
Friday’s superb keynote presentation was by
Mary Lou Jepsen.
Working with
Nicholas Negroponte, Jepsen was the founding CTO of One Laptop Per Child
(OLPC). She was listed by Time Magazine in 2008 as one of the 100 most
influential people in the world. Also this year, Jepsen founded the company
Pixel Qi to follow up on the OLPC technology.
Other Friday GHC talks and panels I attended:
- Session Six: “Internship Program Showcase” It was interesting
to see how other companies manage their internships. Interns are
a big part of our world in
Sun Labs. - Session Seven: “Women in the Brave New World of Free and Open Source
Software”. This energetic panel was put together and chaired by Meenakshi Kaul-Basu
and also included Valerie Fenwick of Sun. The room was packed and full of questions.
You can read more in
Valerie’s Weblog about this excellent panel. Sun’s registration
bag giveaway for Hopper was our OpenSolaris Student Pack (see my
September 19, 2008 blog entry). - Session Eight: “Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award Winner – Elaine
Weyuker (AT&T Labs)”. I spent 1985-1993 as one of the architects and overall
program manager for Sun’s software product life cycle (aka the
Software Development Framework), so this talk about AT&T’s statistical approach
to bug reduction in large software was fascinating. - Session Nine: “Intellectual Property & Patents Empowering Innovation”
This was an interesting talk, particularly in light of the recent
JMRI case. - BOF: Our MAGIC BOF!
“Setting Up an Effective Organization to Support Girls” MAGIC was kicked off
at our 2007 GHC BOF. The 2008 MAGIC BOF was well attended and we heard many
helpful suggestions for the MAGIC girls’ mentoring program’s second year.
After the BOF session ended, we boogied over to another building for Sun’s private
reception. Sun’s CTO organization partnered with the Women@Sun group to
host the event. We invited both Sun staff and friends. After the Sun reception,
most of us went to the joint Google-Microsoft party for dinner and dancing.
Sun’s Hopper 2008 Reception
Image Copyright 2008, by Katy Dickinson
KatysBlog 