Category Archives: Hopper – Anita Borg Institute

Three of us from the new
MAGIC program presented at The Girls’ Middle School
(GMS) in Mountain View, CA today. GMS is partnering with MAGIC on our
first pilot program. MAGIC (More Active Girls In Computing) is a mentorship program
between very senior technical women at Sun Microsystems, Google, NASA and other
organizations and middle school girls. MAGIC was kicked off at the
October 2007 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. (MAGIC has just
been accepted to present again at
Hopper 2008.) We want to foster in these girls a positive attitude towards
computing and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math).

Hosted by Michelle Friend Hutton (GMS Technology Director), Ira Pramanick, Meenakshi Kaul-Basu,
and I presented at a GMS school assembly this afternoon
to tell the girls all about it. We passed out MAGIC pencils imprinted with our web address.
There was much trading of pencils until all the girls got the colors they preferred.

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Last night the amazing
Women of Vision event was held in downtown San Jose. Sun Labs’

Susan Landau, Distinguished Engineer, won the
Anita Borg Institute
2008 WOV Award in the Social Impact category. Sun’s CTO

Greg Papadopoulos gave the welcome address at the Imperial Ballroom of the
Fairmont Hotel. Some photos from the inspiring event are below.

In a few days, videos of the 3 winners’ acceptance speeches will be posted on YouTube.
Those of us who are building the new
MAGIC program for mentoring middle school girls are already planning how
to use these videos in our program. All of the acceptance speeches were amazing
but
Helen Greiner (Co-founder and Chairman, iRobot, 2008 WOV winner for
Innovation) was particularly moving when she spoke about never even once having
been encouraged to consider Engineering as a career when she was a girl,
despite her aptitude and fascination for math and computers, and
our obligation not to let that kind of negligence continue into the new generation.

To make it easier to find the videos from the first two WOV events, here are links:

• 
  Woman of Vision Radia Perlman Video 2005 WOV Winner for Innovation
  
  (Radia Perlman is Sun’s first woman Fellow!)
  
• 
  Woman of Vision Janie Tsao 2005 WOV Winner for Leadership
• 
  Woman of Vision Pamela Samuelson Video 2005 WOV Winner for Social Impact
• 
  Deborah Estrin, Women of Vision 2007 WOV Winner for Innovation
  
  
  Deborah Estrin, Acceptance Speech
  
• 
  Duy-Loan Le, Women of Vision for Leadership 2007
  
  
  Duy-Loan Le, Acceptance Speech, part 1
  
  
  Duy-Loan Le, Acceptance Speech, part 2
  
• 
  Leah Jamieson, Women of Vision for Social Impact 2007
  
  
  Leah Jamieson, Acceptance Speech
  

Greg Papadopoulos

Susan Landau

Program, Keychain, Badge

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

On
27 Febuary, I wrote a blog about Sun Labs’

Susan Landau, Distinguished Engineer, winning the
Anita Borg Institute
2008
Women of Vision Award in the Social Impact category.
Sun has 58 executives, engineers, students, and interns attending
tomorrow’s WOV celebration event, with Sun CTO

Greg Papadopoulos giving the welcome address! We are all very proud of
Dr. Susan Landau.

But, I am also proud of Sun’s Engineering community which made this
celebration possible:

• The women who applied for the award on Susan’s behalf, put together
  the nomination package, including executive letters of recommendation
  from Sun’s leadership, and nurtured it through the process.
• The executives who put up the funding to cover Sun’s
  Gold sponsorship of the event. (The fee was split three ways between
  Software, Operations, and the CTO/Sun Labs group.)
• The Marketing staff who designed the program advertisement.
• The University Relations staff who invited 20 students and interns
  to sit at Sun’s tables at the event.

Among Sun’s 58 attendees, we have students and interns from a dozen
schools and universities, plus Sun staff from Labs, Systems, Legal,
Operations, Human Resources, SunIT, Marketing, Microelectronics, and
Sales. Everyone wants to celebrate!

Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (aka GHC and Hopper 2008) will
be held 1-4 October 2008 in Keystone, Colorado.

• March 26, 2008:
  Proposals due

• Conference website:
  http://gracehopper.org/2008/

• About Hopper: The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is a series of conferences designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. Presenters are leaders in their respective fields, representing industrial, academic and government communities. Leading researchers present their current work, while special sessions focus on the role of women in today’s technology fields, including computer science, information technology, research and engineering. International participation is encouraged.
• Why go to Hopper?
  1. Professional education, celebration, and excitement
  2. Networking and Visibility
  3. Recruiting (University and Professional)
• What do I do?
  Consider attending the conference. Make a proposal to speak, join a
  panel, present a poster, manage a BOF, be a conference volunteer or blogger.
  Over twenty Sun women are proposing or participating in
  proposed Hopper panels, BOFs, and activities. We will find out in May 2008
  which proposals are accepted.

The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is presented by the
Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI)
and the Association for Computing Machinery.
Sun is an ABI
Strategic Partner.

Congratulations to Susan Landau!

It was
announced today that Sun Labs’

Susan Landau, Distinguished Engineer, is the
Anita Borg Institute
2008 Women of Vision Award winner in the Social Impact category.
From today’s press release:

Landau’s focus is on the interplay between security and public
policy. She has profound impact in at least three areas of computer
science: as an extensive commentator and advisor on U.S. wiretapping
and encryption policy; as a world renowned expert in computational
algebra and number theory (mathematics intimately related to
cryptography), and in developing numerous programs to benefit women
in computer science.

While I myself am not a member of
Sun Labs, my department sits with them here in Menlo Park, California. There
is also a Sun Labs in Burlington, Massachusetts (where Susan Landau works).
The coolest thing about Sun Labs is the stimulating and creative people. Walking by
the offices of major innovators like
Ivan Sutherland,
Gilda Garreton,
Whit Diffie,
Danny Cohen,
and Sheueling Chang
is inspiring even when they are not around for a visit.

This is the second time that a Sun Engineer has won an ABI Women of Vision award.
Sun Fellow and Vice President

Radia Perlman was so honored in the Innovation category in the first year the
award was given (2005).

Here are some pictures of Sun Labs, Menlo Park:

Sun Labs, Menlo Park

Car in Sun Labs

Sun SPOT Map

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Last week, I traveled to Washington DC in order to participate in
the annual meeting of the
Anita Borg Institute Technical Advisory Board. The first
place I visited between meetings was the
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum on the national mall.
This building seems to contains the first of everything: the actual planes
and equipment, rarely models. Since 2007 is
the 50th anniversary of
Sputnik, the Smithsonian had a special exhibit about the U.S.-Soviet space
race, including a life size replica of Sputnik hanging from the ceiling.
(It was borrowed from the Soviet space museum.) There is even a figure of
Sally Ride, the first American Space Woman (whom I was thrilled to meet
in person at the 2006 Grace Hopper
Celebration of Women in Computing).

You can tell I am a native Californian because I take photos of snow…

Arriving with the first snow

George Washington head with snow

Rose in first snow

Washington Monument (mall with snow)

50 Years of the Space Age

with 1957 Sputnik

Smithsonian rockets

Smithsonian 1969 lunar lander

MacCready’s 1977 Gossamer Condor

Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis 1927

Yeager’s 1947 X-1 Glamorous Glennis

Wright Brothers’ 1903 Flyer

Images Copyright 2007 by Katy Dickinson

I am in Washington DC for the first time in about 35 years for
the annual meeting of the
Anita Borg Institute Technical Advisory Board, of which I have
the honor to be a member. Before and after meetings, I have been
walking around our capital city.

I am staying in a hotel in the Foggy Bottom Historic District, near
George Washington University. It feels peculiar to write that I am
staying in Foggy Bottom but then this is a city where every
car license plate bears the phrase

Taxation Without Representation to protest the District of Columbia’s
lack of representation in Congress. That is, the local government uses
every car as a mobile political protest sign against the federal
government which is based here… peculiar indeed.

Today, the flags are at half mast for Pearl Harbor Day.
So far, I have visited the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the
Lincoln Memorial (a short walk from Foggy Bottom), the Viet Nam Veterans
Memorial, the Korean Veterans Memorial, the F.D. Roosevelt Memorial, the
Jefferson Memorial, the World War II Veterans Memorial, and the Washington
Monument. That is, I have walked through some key sights in half of the
National Mall. From the mound of the Washington Monument tonight, I
could see the newly-lit national Christmas tree but my feet were too
tired to walk over for a closer look.

It snowed heavily the first day I arrived and it continues cold and icy.
This morning, three of us were going to walk from the hotel to our
meeting room at the National Academy of Engineering but it started
to sleet as we came through the door, so we took a cab. It was
snowing again tonight as I walked around the Washington Monument.

It is inspiring to see the monuments of which I have only seen
photos as they were opened over the years. The Lincoln Memorial
and Viet Nam Memorial were particularly moving. The Lincoln Memorial
is almost painfully lovely with its bright white stone lit up
at night. Lincoln’s words from his Gettysburg Address and
second inaugural address are cut into the walls at either side of his
statue:

Fondly do we hope – fervently do we pray – that this mighty
sourge of war may speedily pass away … With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

With its black stone slabs and ramp going down as into a grave, the
Viet Nam Memorial reminded me of the Jewish Memorial Temple at the Dachau
concentration camp outside of Munich. My daughter visits Washington
DC regularly now that she is in college in Pittsburgh, PA. She says
that in the sunlight, the polished surface of the Viet Nam Memorial
reflects your face back among the names of the war dead. If I have
time tomorrow, I will try to go back to see this. The Vietnam Women’s
Memorial – a tribute to the nurses of that sad war that was fought
during much of my childhood – also deserves a second look.