Category Archives: Hopper – Anita Borg Institute

September 22, 2012 · 11:24 pm

TechWomen Tours

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Yesterday was a very full day for the 42 TechWomen visiting California from the Middle East and North Africa. Audrey Van Belleghem (NetApp Director, Strategic Programs) invited a group of us to tour the NetApp Sunnyvale campus – seeing the data center and sharing lunch. Then, a group of TechWomen went to visit the Stanford University campus, while others started driving south to visit Disneyland, Hollywood, and Universal Studios for the weekend.

Last night, two dozen mentors, mentees, and Anita Borg Institute program staff gathered at the Muslim Community Association in Santa Clara. I worked with the MCA Outreach group to set up this event. MCA generously hosted the dinner and welcomed the TechWomen into their community. Three of the TechWomen (two mentors and a mentee) had gone to the same Engineering school in Alexandria, Egypt, and had fun catching up with each other over dinner.

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Images Copyright 2012 by Katy Dickinson

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September 6, 2012 · 10:57 pm

TechWomen 2012 Orientation

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Today was when the TechWomen 2012 mentors and mentees (“Emerging Leaders”) all met for the first time – at the orientation event hosted by Oracle in Redwood City, California. It was an exhilarating day – both catching up with returning 2011 mentors and meeting the three mentees who will be hosted by Huawei in Santa Clara this month. I have been working with the U.S. State Department’s TechWomen program since 2010 and am so very pleased it is going well in its second year. As both a Professional Mentor and the manager of the TechWomen program overall for Huawei, I am looking forward to working with our mentees, one each from Lebanon, Egypt, and Morocco.

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Images Copyright 2012 by Katy Dickinson

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August 7, 2012 · 10:23 pm

TechWomen Mentor Training

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TechWomen mentor training was today, hosted by Walmart in San Bruno, California. About TechWomen:

Harnessing the power of business, technology and innovation, TechWomen brings emerging women leaders in technology sectors from the Middle East and North Africa together with their American counterparts for a professional mentorship and exchange program at leading companies in the United States.

Pairing Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s vision of “smart power diplomacy” with “21st Century Statecraft,” TechWomen works to empower women and girls through technology.  It connects and supports the next generation of women in technology sectors by providing them the access and opportunity needed to pursue careers in technology.

TechWomen is an initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA).  … partnering with the Institute of International Education (IIE) and the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) to implement this initiative.

This is the second year for TechWomen, with Silicon Valley companies hosting women from Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, Palestine, and Yemen. I was the Process Architect for TechWomen from 2010-2011. Today, I gave a short talk on the Best and Worst Practices in Mentoring. I am proud to be a Professional Mentor myself this year. Each mentee has both a Professional and a Cultural mentor assigned to her. Huawei hosted three mentees last year in Santa Clara (two from Lebanon and one from Egypt) and will host three more this year (one each from Egypt, Lebanon, and Morocco). We are very much looking forward to meeting them in September!

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Images Copyright 2012 by Katy Dickinson

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July 21, 2012 · 1:36 pm

Non-Travel Diary 4

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While my husband John is in China on business for Huawei, I am keeping a non-travel diary. This has been a relatively quiet week. In addition to working full-time at Huawei:

  • There was a small amount of progress on our home construction projects. The painter spent a half day painting the wrong color stain on the baseboards.  When I pointed out the error, he spent about the same amount of time sanding that color off and re-staining. Nobody was happy.
  • Thursday, I joined the monthly Board meeting of the Santa Maria Urban Ministry. We said an appreciative goodbye to our summer intern.  The SMUM Tech Team (of which John and I are members) was assigned some new projects by the Board.
  • My newly-assigned 2012 TechWomen mentee from Lebanon and I made first contact. We exchanged introductory emails and are starting to make preparations for her visit to the Silicon Valley in September. Her background is impressive – I very much look forward to working with her in person.  TechWomen is an initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA).
  • I communicated with the 2011 TechWomen mentees with whom I am presenting a panel at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in October 2012 (Baltimore, MD).  I am the moderator of the panel called “Technical Women in the Arab Region: Challenges vs. Aspirations”. We have travel funding confirmed for three of the panelists and we are working on support for our fourth. The ladies are traveling from Algeria, Palestine, Egypt, and Lebanon for GHC12.  I am very eager to see them again!
  • Paul and I took our Wood Shop basic safety and equipment introduction at TechShop San Jose last night.  We enjoyed learning to use the miter saw, table saw, band saw, electric sander, and drill press.  The scroll saw is being repaired so we will learn how to use that later.  I made a heart for John and Paul started work on an infinity symbol using the band saw.  One of the other students laser-engraved the heart for me.  I want to take a TechShop laser class next!
  • This morning, we had a community yard sale. Despite being on Craigslist and putting signs up on nearby corners, it was very poorly attended. However, it was fun to hang out with the neighbors. Our neighborhood apparently has 7 boys and 1 girl aged between 6 and 12 years old – who spent the morning rocketing from sale to sale comparing stuff and giving updates.
  • John comes home Tuesday morning!

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Images Copyright 2012 by Katy Dickinson

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May 12, 2012 · 9:39 pm

Women of Vision 2012

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The annual ABI Women of Vision event was last week – inspiring and interesting, as always. Huawei sponsored my attending the “Top Company for Technical Women” workshop in addition to the evening banquet and awards ceremony. Winners this year:

Leadership Award:
Jennifer Chayes, Distinguished Scientist and Managing Director, Microsoft Research New England
Innovation Award:
Sarita Adve, Professor of Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Social Impact Award:
Sarah Revi Sterling, Faculty Director, ATLAS Institute at the University of Colorado at Boulder
Anita Borg Top Company For Technical Women Award:
American Express

It was particularly enjoyable to spend social time with women who participated in the 2011 TechWomen program – and who have applied to be mentors again in 2012.

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Images Copyright 2012 by Katy Dickinson

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May 9, 2012 · 9:25 pm

Anita Borg Institute Advisory Board Meeting

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Today was the annual in-person meeting of the Advisory Board of the Anita Borg Institute. As usual, we met at the HP Labs building in Palo Alto, California, which hosts the ABI offices. Amazing technical leaders from all of the great Silicon Valley and US technology companies, plus some universities and government groups were there.  We discussed plans for the future and presented some of our accomplishments for the year, including the publication of my committee’s Famous Women in Computer Science web resource.  We took home posters for the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, to be held 3-6 October 2012 in Baltimore, Maryland.

Most of the Advisory Board members and ABI staff will get together again tomorrow night at the Women of Vision event in Santa Clara. Huawei is sending a group to this  inspiring annual gathering – I am very much looking forward to it!

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Images by Katy Dickinson 2012 Copyright

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March 12, 2012 · 11:05 pm

Published: “Famous Women in Computer Science”

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“Advancing Your Career Through Awards” panel at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2010, including (L to R): Lucy Sanders, Fran Allen, Bob Walker, Katy Dickinson, Marcy Alstott, and Manuela Veloso.

In November 2009, I first published my first “Famous Women in Computer Science” blog entry. I am delighted to report that in honor of International Women’s Day 2012, the Anita Borg Institute has published an updated and expanded version of that material as a new web resource:

The Anita Borg Institute is proud to introduce – Famous Women in Computer Science. This list was compiled by our Advisory Board Awards Committee: Katy Dickinson (Director, Huawei Technologies), Fran Allen (IBM Emerita and 2006 Turing Award Winner), Dr. Chandra Krintz, (Professor, Computer Science Department, University of California at Santa Barbara) and Dr. Robert Walker (Professor and Chair, Computer Science Department, Kent State University). The women on this list are leaders in Computer Science and recognized by their peers and the technology industry through major awards and other public acknowledgements of excellence.

The ultimate goal of this list is to encourage our readers to:

  • Navigate the ABI awards web sites
  • Identify women with award-winning potential
  • Encourage those who want to understand their own potential for promotion, honors, and awards
  • Organize and inform a nomination or promotion

Awards and other honors often go begging for lack of good nominations. A great woman is often overlooked because no one mentioned her name or took the time to build her case. Increased focus is needed on awards going to great technical women at every stage in their careers.

The new “Famous Women in Computer Science” web resource is attracting attention: we have already had many requests to add more names. Our committee is reviewing and researching suggestions as we get them. The list is incomplete and growing. After reviewing what is already published, if you have a suggestion for this list please send a message to information@anitaborg.org. Here is the 8 March 2012 press release.

“Famous Women in Computer Science” is a companion resource to the “Award-Winning Career Timelines In Computer Science and Engineering”  material my amazing ABI Advisory Board committee published in 2010.

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“The Value of Awards and How to Get Them” at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2009, including (L to R): Katy Dickinson, Chandra Krintz, Bob Walker.

Images by Katy Dickinson 2009-2010

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