KatysBlog

We have all of my Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC09) photos from last week uploaded,
so I just finished adding the pictures to my GHC09 blog entries so far:

• 
  Day Before the Hopper Conference, Tucson, Arizona (GHC09),
  
  Tuesday, September 29, 2009
• 
  1st day at Hopper Conference (GHC09),
  
  Wednesday, September 30, 2009
• 
  2nd Day at Hopper Conference (GHC09),
  
  Thursday October 01, 2009
• 
  I Am a Technical Woman, 3rd Day at Hopper Conference (GHC09),
  
  Friday October 02, 2009

Here are additional photos, some from the walk my daughter Jessica and I took on Saturday morning before we left for the airport.

Katy and banner

Jessica and cactus

Katy and Jessica badges

saguaro hill

Cactus skyline

last cactus flower

little cactus, rocks

Images Copyright 2009 by Katy Dickinson

This is the third day of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC09), in Tucson, Arizona. I was on a second panel (“The Two Body Problem” about couples managing two technical careers*). My daughter Jessica gave a five minute “Ignite Talk” called “Playing with Alice After School” about using the Alice programming tool in a music teaching curriculum she developed for a group of middle-school Girl Scouts. This is Jessica’s third time presenting in the Hopper Conference (she started when she was a High School Senior); she is already planning what to submit for next year.

Jessica and Alice

Sun table

Katy, Evgenia, Amarda, Kristin

At last night’s award’s ceremony, Jerri Barrett, Marketing Vice President of the Anita Borg Institute (ABI), gave the first showing of the excellent new YouTube video called “I am a Technical Woman”. It is great fun to see the large number of Sun women included.

After the awards were given, about five hundred of us danced for hours. It started with Electric Slide dancing, then large circles were formed of women who worked together, then a bigger circle formed and pairs of women would go in to dance together before giving the space to another set, after that there were line dances, then back to circle dancing. Women wore sari, hijab head scarves, little black dresses, fitted suits, and jeans with tank tops. Everyone danced with and for everyone else. There were maybe a dozen men in the group. Chief Technologists danced with junior engineers and Presidents of technical colleges danced with students. It was delightful.

Today began for me with the first joint breakfast between the ABI Board of Trustees and the ABI Advisory Board, of which I am honored to be a member. Breakfast was followed by the superb keynote presentation by Fran Berman, Vice President for Research at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, called “Creating Technology for Social Good, A Prologue”.

Anita Borg Institute

Dancing at Hopper

Enjoying the dance

Two highlights of today’s conference offerings were a fun mentoring skit and commentary session called “Mentoring: Difficult and Sensitive Issues”, and Bernardine Dias’ report about TechBridgeWorld and Computing Technology for Developing Communities. I last saw her speak at an NCWIT event in May 2009 and she was every bit as impressive this time.

This evening was the big Sponsors’ Night party around the pools with food, dancing, tshirts for all and prize drawings. There was much excitement when someone saw a rattlesnake in the bushes beside a path.

Sun’s GHC exhibit hall table is now closed down. The few items left from Wednesday’s large pile of boxes of tshirts, pens, reports, books, and other giveaways are already shipping home. As our little procession of Sun women was carrying those last items to my hotel room for packing, we were stopped twice by students begging for a cool Sun Women in Engineering tshirt. Alas, all of the shirts were distributed by yesterday.

* Panel Slides:
“Solving the Two Body Problem” by Kristin Yvonne Rozier, Katy Dickinson, Amarda Shehu, and Evgenia Smirni, 2 October 2009 (9 pages, PDF format)

Images Copyright 2009 by Katy Dickinson

This is the second day of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC09), in Tucson, Arizona. My daughter Jessica and I are rooming together and hanging out when we are not attending or participating in other events. Last night, Jessica’s Poetry and Prose Performances Project poster** was well received. Every time I saw her during the reception, there were people asking questions.

My first panel was today: “The Value of Awards and How to Get Them”*, with Dr. Chandra Krintz (Associate Professor, Computer Science Department, University of California at Santa Barbara) and Dr. Bob Walker (Professor and Chair, Computer Science Department, Kent State University). The panel was well-attended and we answered many good questions. Unfortunately, we were in the same time slot as the ever-popular Imposters Panel. I gave away fifty copies of our panel handout but there were people who did not get one, so I have linked it here.

Katy Dickinson, Chandra Krintz, Bob Walker

Sun’s CTO Greg Papadopoulos and all of us are very sorry that he was unable to attend the Hopper Conference at the last minute. He had been invited to talk about his new book: Citizen Engineer: A Handbook for Socially Responsible Engineering.

.

We are handing out 100 of Greg’s books from Sun’s exhibit hall table with a unique-to-GHC09 insert featuring a signed quote from Greg from 2006:

“Beyond corporate initiatives, it’s critical to provide a broader sense of community for aspiring female engineers and leaders. Organizations like the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology and Women in Technology International serve such a purpose, giving women the opportunity to share ideas and experiences at conferences like the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing…

In the end, society is influenced by a variety of motivations. Whether yours is social justice, personal experience or the old-fashioned profit motive, there is no doubt that being more inclusive in engineering will make the whole field richer, wealthier and more connected to society. Consider this. When was the last technical conference you attended called a ‘celebration’? My point precisely.”

We are also giving away copies of the new Sun Labs technical report: “Sun Mentoring: 1996-2009” (2009, by Katy Dickinson, Tanya Jankot, and Helen Gracon)

I was at a VIP breakfast this morning that started at 7 am. Crossing the arroyo bridge between sections of the hotel, I saw a desert lynx sitting below. One of the hotel staff said the lynx had just had her babies and nesting there. So cool! Tonight is the GHC Awards presentation and dance.

* Read the official GHC09 blog entry on my Value of Awards panel.

** Read ACM’s Valerie Barr on “Opening Day of Grace Hopper Conference” for a review of Jessica’s poster.

Images Copyright 2009 by Katy Dickinson

This is the first day of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC09), in Tucson, Arizona. My daughter Jessica arrived this afternoon. She put up her Poetry and Prose Performances Project poster for the opening reception tonight.

Now, we are in our room sorting swag from the registration bags, including: Sun’s wonderful water bottle, a notepad in a case (Symantec), hand-crank flashlight (SAP), glasses case (Raytheon), waterproof case (NYU), survival light-compass-whistle (Virginia Tech), makeup mirror (NetApp), purse hook (NetApp), USB hub that looks like a chew toy (Thomson Reuters), weird red nail polish (State Farm), mints (Microsoft, CA), sunscreen (Yahoo), pens and pencils (lots), a big mesh beach bag (Lockheed Martin), a strange ninja coder coaster (Amazon), and 1 free download song (HP). We are still checking out Hopper Conference tshirts (but of course, I like Sun’s best).

Sun water bottle, GHC09 bag

Sun GHC09 tshirt

I have already talked with dozens of impossibly interesting and cool people and am looking forward to the first regular day of sessions tomorrow. The Sun women have already unpacked Sun’s exhibit hall table (in a very good location near the bottom of the escalator). We have been giving out Sun tshirts, pens, books, technical reports, copies of Open Solaris software, and other stuff to an enthusiastic and energetic crowd of 1,600 technical women in industry, faculty, and students. What fun!

Gilda Garreton

Jessica with Maria Klawe

Pamela Parish

Cynthia Chin-Lee, Sonia Leon

Cathleen Wharton

Deirdre Straughan

Images Copyright 2009 by Katy Dickinson

I just arrived in Tucson, Arizona, where it is 101 degrees F and huge cactus grow everywhere. I am here for the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC09), the best technical women’s conference there is. My daughter Jessica arrives tomorrow. Both of us have published blog entries on where you can find us at Hopper:

• Where to find Jessica who is presenting a poster and a workshop
• Where to find Katy who is chairing one panel and joining another

Of course, whenever possible you will find us together. I love the Hopper Conference and will very much enjoy the talks and activities, but (as a Mom), I also love the opportunity to spend three and a half days with my wonderful lovely daughter who goes to college over 2,600 miles away from home.

Jessica’s work can be seen in her blog and (just published!) in the Carnegie Mellon Student Affairs Study Abroad “Student Perspectives”.

View from my Tucson, Arizona room

Image Copyright 2009 by Katy Dickinson