Press Releases: A Family (child) Friendly Technical Conference
Grace Hopper Conference to offer full-service child care
July 16, 2007 PALO ALTO, CA. — A full slate of childcare services will be offered at the seventh annual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women and Computing (GHC) conference, October 17-20 in Orlando, Florida the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology announced today. A technical conference, GHC – www.gracehopper .org - is the largest gathering of women in computing in the United States. Childcare is a relatively new and unique offering at a technical conference, typically dominated by men.
“We recognize that many women have multiple jobs and we are leading on this issue to find creative ways to help our women-technologist care for their families as well as their professional and technical development,” said Deanna Kosaraju, GHC Program Manager at the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology. “The GHC conference is a signal to other technical conferences and to industry that in order to attract, retain and advance women the culture of computing needs to change.”
Providing comprehensive and onsite childcare is a high-priority for the Anita Borg Institute, who will be subsiding 50% of the costs to relieve the financial burden on participants. Childcare will span the length of the four-day conference including all keynotes, technical tracks, receptions, banquets and special events so that mothers (and fathers) have full-access and opportunity to make the most of the their experience. Childcare cost for infants (ages 0 to 3 years) is $7.00 per hour and children (ages 4 and up) $6.00 per hour.
Child care will be provided by Corporate Kids Events, Inc. & VIP Babysitting and Youth Services (CKE). CKE provides customized theme-based schedule of child- and teen-care programs. Each activity has been “kid-tested” to ensure that it is age-appropriate, stimulating and, of course, always fun! For more information see: www.gracehopper.org/2007/participate/child-care/
The GHC conference addresses many of the critical issues and impact – social, business and cultural - of the serious under-representation of women and minorities in computing and technical fields while recognizing and modeling the efforts of those pursuing these fields of expertise.
The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is a program of the
Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI)
and is co-presented by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology
and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
www.gracehopper.org