Press Room/Online Media Information

Fact Sheet:

What: 2004 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference

Theme: Making History

Overview: A world class technical conference for women in the field of Computer Science providing a forum to inspire, educate, encourage and create awareness of opportunities for women in the field of computing and to celebrate the considerable achievement of women in the field.

Where: Chicago, Illinois, Sheraton Chicago Hotel and Towers

Website: www.gracehopper.org .

Contact: media@gracehopper.org or 650-236-4079

When: October 6-9, 2004

Why: This year's theme, Making History , emphasizes the importance of cooperation and collaboration with women of different generations. It also highlights the impact that women have made and will continue to make on technology.

Who: The largest gathering of Women in Computing in the World including graduate and undergraduate students and professors, women from industry and women from government.

Keynotes:

• Dr. Shirley Malcom , Head of Education and Human Resources of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Dr. Telle Whitney , President and CEO, Anita Borg Institute of Women and Technology, and
• Professor Lydia Kavraki , Rice University. Winner of the 2000 ACM Grace Hopper Award.

Speakers:

• Genevieve Bell, Intel
• Linda Bernardi, ConnecTerra
• Cynthia Dwork, Microsoft Research
• Jessica Hodgins, CMU
• Melody Moore, Georgia State
• Daniela Rus, MIT
• Tandy Warnow UT Austin.
• And many many more…

History: Co-founded in 1994 by Dr. Anita Borg (1949-2003) and Dr. Telle Whitney and named to honor the legacy of US Navy Admiral, Grace Murray Hopper. Her work on compilers and on making machines understand ordinary language instructions led ultimately to the development of the business language COBOL.

There have been four Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conferences, 1994 in Washington DC, 1997 in San Jose California, 2000 in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and 2002 in Vancouver, British Columbia.

The Conference Design: Plenary sessions, technical papers, panels, and workshops by successful researchers and professionals in the area of Computer Science. The majority of speakers are women who are leaders in their fields, representing the industrial, academic, and government communities.

Grace Hopper Celebration 2004 Sponsors:

Platinum : ACM and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Gold : AT&T, Cisco Systems, Google, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems. Silver :  Abbott Labs, Amazon.com, Apple Computer, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Bronze :  Argonne National Lab, ChevronTexaco and Usenix.

Academic scholarship sponsors:
Gold : UC Irvine. Silver : CRA-W,  DePaul, Georgia Tech, Harvard University, Texas A&M, Toyota Technical Institute at Chicago. Bronze : Caltech, Carnegie Mellon , Indiana University, the National Center for Women and IT (NCWIT), Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC),  RPI, Stanford, Princeton, UC Berkeley, UC  Los Angeles, UC Riverside, UC San Diego,  UCSD IT(2), UC Santa Barbara , UC Santa Cruz  and University of Texas Austin. Affiliate : ATLAS Institute, National University of Singapore,  Ohio State, Pace University, Purdue University, UC Davis and University of Virginia .

Presented by:

The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (www.anitaborg.org) provides platforms that enable women's voices, ideas, and spirits influence technology. For further information, contact Eric Mason 650-236-4079 or ericm@anitaborg.org.

ACM (www.acm.org) is widely recognized as the premier organization for computing professionals, delivering a broad array of resources that advance the computing and IT disciplines, enable professional development, and promote policies and research that benefit society. For further information, contact Virginia Gold 212-626-0505 or vgold@acm.org .

Additional Highlights: AWARDS

Anita Borg Award for Technical Leadership sponsored by Greg Papadopoulos, in memory of Anita Borg.

Anita Borg Social Impact Award sponsored by Microsoft.