10th Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC10)

Think of how it feels to smooth on pleasant-smelling hand lotion after a long day outside in the winter. Or, how it feels to swallow a cool drink after hours in the hot sun. That delightful sensation of rehydration, of filling in the gaps, is a little like how it feels for a technical woman to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. All year long, every meeting in which I am the only woman is a small dessication, a little drying out. By autumn, I am so ready to spend three fulfilling days in the company of thousands of intelligent, capable, technical women from academia, industry, and government.

The 10th Hopper Conference was held in Atlanta, Georgia. This is the 2nd year that GHC was sold out months in advance. There were 2,147 Attendees (964 Students), from 29 Countries, and 436 Speakers. I chaired a panel on “Advancing Your Career Through Awards”. My daughter Jessica (a Senior at Carnegie Mellon University) presented a poster on Other People’s Money, called- “OPM: How to Get the Funding You Need to Do the Work You Love”. Jessica and I have been attending the Hopper Conference together for the last four years.

About my panel:

Panelists:
Katy Dickinson (Huawei Technologies), Panel Chair
Frances E. Allen (IBM)
Marcy Alstott (Hewlett-Packard)
Lucinda M Sanders (NCWIT – National Center for Women & Information Technology)
Robert Walker (Kent State University)
Manuela M. Veloso (Carnegie Mellon University)

Panel Description:
There are hundreds of awards available to women in computing. In industry, promotions and high-status titles can serve the same function as awards. Some organizations offer higher pay, public acknowledgment, or seniority to winners of major awards. What difference does it make if you get an award? How do we ensure that more women students, professionals, and academics will get into the queue and on the lists of those honored?

What’s the Hopper Conference all about?

Teaching

Sharing Experience, Knowledge, Resources

Learning

Connections, Building Networks

Inside your company

To the worldwide technical community

Honoring Achievements

Fun!

Two of the most inspiring presentations during this excellent conference were the keynote talk by Dr. Duy-Loan Le, Texas Instruments’ Senior Fellow, and Dr. Fernanda Viegas, Google Research Scientist, speaking on “Politics to Art: Visualization as a Medium”. We also heard from Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz and many other remarkable women. We danced, visited the Georgia Tech Usability Labs, and had a party with whale sharks at the Georgia Aquarium. It was great – I came back to work full of new knowledge, refreshed, and motivated.

Here are some GHC10 pictures: