GHC News: GRACE HOPPER CELEBRATION OF WOMEN IN COMPUTING ANNOUNCES RECORD BREAKING TURNOUT
New Video, I am a Technical Woman, Premieres Today
PALO ALTO, Calif. — October 1, 2009 — The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) today announced a record breaking turnout of 1,608 attendees for the first day of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. The world’s largest gathering of women in computing in industry, academia, and government, the Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) is a four-day technical conference designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. The theme of this year’s conference is “Creating Technology for Social Good”. GHC is taking place in Tucson, Arizona, September 30 – October 1, 2009 at the JW Marriott Starr Pass Resort and Spa.
“The Grace Hopper Celebration has increased in size by over 11 percent this year,” said Deanna Kosaraju, ABI’s vice president of programs. “We believe this growth is tied to the continuous innovation that takes place within our conference. The innovation results from more than 90 committee members from industry and academia who work to build an entirely new program each year featuring the latest technological innovations combined with content to support women in their technical careers.”
Highlights of the first day included a new workshop “A Person of Influence,” sponsored by Cisco, with more than 600 participants. A Resume Clinic sponsored by Thomson Reuters provided coaching to more than 300 women. CRA-W and the Henry Luce Foundation sponsored a new series of Career Mentoring Workshops for undergraduates, graduate students and early career researchers. The evening featured a poster session, sponsored by Symantec, with a record-breaking 112 posters from students and technical women from around the world.
The second day of GHC will feature the premiere of a new video, I am a Technical Woman. The video is available for download from the Anita Borg Institute website and highlights the diversity of technical women. “We recommend the video for anyone who is interested in supporting the recruitment, retention and advancement of technical women,” said Jerri Barrett, vice president of marketing. “We’re distributing copies to the teachers attending the Computer Science Teachers Association and University of Phoenix’s K12 Computing Teachers Workshop, sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Motorola Foundation, and IBM, to use with their students.
GHC features more than 100 panels, workshops and birds of a feather sessions with over 430 speakers. More than 173 companies have sent representatives including:
Platinum Sponsors: Amazon, CA, Cisco, Google, HP, IBM, Intel, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, NetApp, and Sun Microsystems.
Platinum Government Patron: National Science Foundation
Gold Government Patron: National Security Agency
Silver Corporate Sponsors: BlackRock, Bloomberg, eBay/PayPal, Facebook, Goldman Sachs, Intuit, Raytheon, Salesforce.com, SAP, State Farm, Symantec, Thomson Reuters, Thoughtworks, Yahoo
Bronze Corporate Sponsors: Adobe, Akamai, Argonne National Laboratory, AT&T Labs, Avanade, Freddie Mac, USAA.
Supporter Corporate Sponsors: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, LGS Innovations LLC, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Ventana Medical Systems.
More than 210 universities and colleges are represented by students and faculty participating in the conference as both speakers and attendees. Undergraduate and graduate students make up over 45 percent of conference attendees. Universities sending representatives included:
Gold Academic Underwriters: Empowering Leadership, Georgia Tech, University of Southampton.
Silver Academic Underwriters: California Institute of Technology, Carnegie Mellon Information Networking Institute, New York University, Princeton, The University of Arizona, NCSA/University of Illinois.
Bronze Academic Underwriters: Harvey Mudd College, Indiana University, Michigan Technological University, Northwestern University, Santa Clara University, Tufts University, University of British Columbia, University of Michigan School of Information, University of Nebraska at Omaha, University of Pennsylvania, Virginia Tech.
Supporter Academic Underwriters: Pace University, Mississippi State – Bagley College of Engineering.
About the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI)The Anita Borg Institute provides resources and programs to help industry, academia, and government recruit, retain, and develop women leaders in high-tech fields, resulting in higher levels of technological innovation. ABI programs serve high-tech women by creating a community and providing tools to help them develop their careers. ABI is a not-for-profit 501(c) 3 charitable organization. ABI Partners include: Google, Microsoft, HP, Cisco, Intel, National Science Foundation, NetApp, SAP, Sun Microsystems, Symantec, IBM, Lockheed Martin, Thomson Reuters, CA, Intuit, Amazon, Facebook, Raytheon, and Genentech. For more information, visit www.anitaborg.org.
Media Contact
Anita Borg Institute
Jerri Barrett
650-857-6095
jerrib@anitaborg.org