If you are a woman in any technical field be it Computer Science, IT or Computer Engineering, Congratulations! you stand out. You probably feel lonely in class or at work if you have done some sort of internship or job, Welcome to my world. Here is some good news. There is a place where you can meet 8000 women in technical fields. Nowhere else but the Grace Hopper Conference of women in computing.
Who is Grace Hopper? She is just a phenomenal woman. You know how programmers complain about bugs in their code, that was her idea. She was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I and she invented the first compiler. She was just that awesome that a whole conference had to named after her.
Another awesome woman was touched by her greatness that in she (Anita Borg) together with Telle Whitney and Maria Klawe committed to bringing more girls into computer science, through the Anita Borg Institute and the Grace Hopper Conference to honor women's contribution to computer science.
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Enough history, now lets get to the fun part. So the Grace Hopper conference happened in Phoenix Arizona this year from the 8th to 10th October. Nothing beats the inspiration from such strong ladies, not even travelling for 33 hours or luggage delay at the airport for 3 days. You know, Megan Smith the Chief Technology Officer of the US, Maria Klawe the president of the Harvey Mudd College, Telle Whitney, the co founder of the Anita Borg Institute. Pictures tell a 1000 words so here we go.
Barbara Baitungi is a Ugandan lady who the change agent award. She is really passionate about getting girls into tech. I wont forget her advice, "get the skills first, employers are not looking for women in tech, they are looking for skills".
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Barbara Baitungi - change agent award winner
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Check this out , Megan Smith, the Chief Technology Officer of the United States of America.
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| Megan Smith - The Chief Technology Officer of the US, |
And Shafi Goldwasser , an MIT proffesor who has won all the awards you could dream of. She spoke about cryptography. I didn't understand everything she said, but I googled everything afterwards, which only means one thing, I'm interested.
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| Shafi - Goldwasser, my role model, when I grow up, I'll be just like you...:) |
I'm interested in open-source projects so the talks on open source projects and chromium (chrome)were really useful. There was also the career fair where I got a chance to network with employers ,get cool swag, and marvel at the Google Self Driving Car as well.
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| Lots of swag from the career fair |
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| New friends from Zambia |
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| Friends , friends |
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| 'Facebook wall' |
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| And more friends |
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| Getting googly with the self driving car |
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| Phoenix |
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Funny thing about Grace Hopper is that you meet with interesting people everywhere, from the elevator to the coffee line.I applied to attend the GHC to be inspired and that is exactly what happened. Well, they say be careful what you wish for. I'm actually so energised right now that I feel like I'm going to lead a revolution of women in tech, literally.
I forgot to mention that it was Facebook that sponsored me to go there.Thanks Facebook!
