PALO ALTO, Calif. — August 25, 2010 — The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) announced today the speakers for the third annual Plenary Panel of Technology Executives for the 10^th annual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC), which will be held September 28-October 2 at the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta, Georgia.  The Plenary Panel of Technology Executives will include Amy Alving, Chief Technology Officer, SAIC, Kelli Crane, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Thomson Reuters, Romea Smith, Senior Vice President, CA Technologies, Support and Kalpana Margabandhu, Director, Websphere Development, IBM India.  The panel will be moderated by Rebecca Norlander, Executive in Residence, Illuminate Ventures.  The theme of the panel is “Collaborative Leadership in Driving Innovation”.

The world’s largest gathering of women in computing in industry, academia, and government, GHC is a five-day technical conference designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. Leading researchers and industry experts discuss their current work, while special sessions focus on the role of women in today’s technology fields, including computer science, information technology, research, and engineering. The theme of this year’s conference is “Collaborating across Boundaries”.

About This Year’s Senior Technology Plenary Panel Speakers

Amy Alving, Chief Technology Officer, Science Applications International Corporation

Dr. Amy Alving is the Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President at Science Applications International Corporation.  She leads SAIC’s Office of Technology and is responsible for the creation, communication and implementation of SAIC’s technical and scientific vision and strategy. Dr. Alving has a diverse background in government and academia, with over 15 years of accomplishments in the areas of technology and national security.

Kelli Crane, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Thomson Reuters

As CIO of Thomson Reuters, Kelli Crane spearheads the development and implementation of a global information technology plan that aligns with the business strategy and leads the organization in implementing advanced enterprise information systems across its vertical businesses. She plays a key role in driving the execution of strategic initiatives and coordinating and tracking major technology projects, bringing Thomson and Reuters together under one technology umbrella. Ms. Crane has been with the company for 23 years, holding positions in technology and operations.

Kalpana Margabandhu, Director, Websphere Development, IBM India

Kalpana Margabandhu is the Director of Websphere Development in the IBM India Software Lab. Kalpana has received several awards in recognition of her leadership with the India Software Lab. She was named the recipient of the IT People Award for Women Leadership in 2007 and the Women in Leadership (WILL) Women’s Choice Award in 2008. In addition to being on the Board of IBM India, Kalpana is very involved in various women’s groups in India.

Romea Smith, Senior Vice President – CA Technologies, Support

Romea Smith was appointed Senior Vice President – CA Technologies, Support in April 2008. Since joining CA in 2000, Romea has been instrumental in enhancing CA Technologies’ ability to provide quality technical support and has been the driving force in improving customer satisfaction and employee experience. Prior to joining CA Technologies, Romea held multiple leadership positions with Sterling Software and Systems Center.

Rebecca Norlander, Executive in Residence, Illuminate Ventures

Prior to joining Illuminate Ventures, Rebecca Norlander started as a Software Design Engineer at Microsoft in 1991. She held many positions in various Microsoft development organizations, most recently as General Manager of the System Protection Team in Windows.

Tthe world’s largest gathering of women in computing in industry, academia, and government, GHC is a five-day technical conference designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. Conference registration is now open. For more information, go to www.gracehopper.org.

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, CA, Cisco, First Republic Bank, IBM, Intel, Intuit, Lockheed Martin, National Science Foundation, NSA, NetApp, SAP, Oracle/Sun, Symantec, Thomson Reuters, Wilson Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, Motorola Foundation, Yahoo!, Amazon, Facebook, and Raytheon. For more information, visit www.anitaborg.org.

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Media Contact
Anita Borg Institute
Jerri Barrett
650-857-6095
jerrib@anitaborg.org

“The Imposter Syndrome panel discusses why women in particular have a difficult time internalizing their accomplishments. In order for women to advance in their organizations, it’s important this phenomenon be addressed. Technical women are responsible for amazing work and innovation and often they do not think it is worthy of acknowledgement. Because this issue is prevalent at all stages of a career, we have decided to make it a plenary session.” said Deanna Kosaraju, Vice President of Programs.

Panelists

Dr. Fran Berman is Vice President for Research and Professor of Computer Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. From 2001 to 2009, she served as Director of the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) where she led a staff of 250+ interdisciplinary scientists, engineers, and technologists. Dr. Berman has been recognized by the Library of Congress as a “Digital Preservation Pioneer” and by BusinessWeek as one of the top women in technology. She was awarded the inaugural ACM/IEEE-CS Ken Kennedy Award in 2009 for “influential leadership in the design, development, and deployment of national-scale cyberinfrastructure.”

Diane Gonzalez is the Vice President of Product Development for the Shared Services & Tools team within Intuit’s CTO organization.  Ms. Gonzalez has held senior management positions at Prism Solutions, ViewStar Corporation, and Ingres Corporation.  Ms. Gonzalez started her professional career at Hewlett-Packard after graduating from the University of California, Berkeley with a BA in Applied Mathematics.

Yolanda A. Rankin is a Research Scientist at IBM Research. Yolanda accumulated extensive experience in telecommunications at AT&T Bell Labs and Lucent Technologies.  She managed the product development of optical networking subsystems at Luxcore Networks. Yolanda completed her Ph.D. in Computer Science at Northwestern University..

Debra J. Richardson, Professor of Informatics and founding dean of UC Irvine’s Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences, joined ICS’ faculty in 1987. Under her leadership as chair, ICS was promoted from department to the only computing-focused school in the University of California in December 2002, after which she served as dean through June 2010.

Katie A. Siek is an assistant professor in Computer Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her primary research interests are in sociotechnical interventions affect personal health and wellness. Her research is supported by NIH, RWJF, and NSF including a five-year NSF CAREER award. Most recently, she received a Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance Distinguished Visiting Fellowship.

The world’s largest gathering of women in computing in industry, academia, and government, GHC is a five-day technical conference designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. Conference registration is  now open.

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, CA, Cisco, First Republic Bank, IBM, Intel, Intuit, Lockheed Martin, National Science Foundation, NSA, NetApp, SAP, Oracle/Sun, Symantec, Thomson Reuters, Wilson Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, Motorola Foundation, Yahoo, Amazon, Facebook, and Raytheon. For more information, visit www.anitaborg.org.

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Media Contact
Anita Borg Institute
Jerri Barrett
650-857-6095
jerrib@anitaborg.org

• Before you arrive at your interview, extensively research the Company you will be interviewing with including their website, annual report, product reviews, media reports, financial news.
• Create a set of basic stories that illustrate how you are qualified for the position. Go in with a handful of stories prepared of successful projects that you completed in previous positions.  Be sure the examples are diverse, for example, ones representing your work with local, off-shored and remote resources; start-up; enterprise-wide; small and large teams; etc.  For each story prepare notes regarding what difficulties you faced, how you  dealt with them, what was easy and why, why you used certain tools, difficulties you encountered personally and what you did about them, results (preferably in numbers), and so forth. Memorize these stories and be able to explain what they illustrate about you.
• Also have personal stories prepared  such as times when people disliked you but you made them thinking differently, when you not only succeeded but exceeded expectation, when you failed but recovered from that failure, and so forth.
• Remember there may be no I in team but there are I’s in interview. Interviewers want to hear what you did and what your personal contribution to your team/project was. If you were very junior on the team and can’t discuss a contribution you made, then talk about what you learned.
• Be prepared for some of the more standard questions such as:
  • Describe how you handled a challenge.
  • How you would start a new project?
  • Describe one of your successes.
  • Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
  • Do you prefer teams or working more independently?
  • Why do you want to leave your current position?
  • Why do you think you are a good fit for this position?
  • What do you bring to the table?
• Have a set of lists known by heart. On this should be some of the following:
  • What professional blogs do you read and why?
  • What tools (usually web-based or version tracking, or bug tracking as well as a few that are career specific) do you think are useful/best?
  • What do you think are the 10 books that everyone in X position should own and why (think of having these in order in case you are asked for more than one)?
  • What are you reading now?
• If you get asked the question “What are you reading now?” you can say you just received a book that you really want to start to read and that you are hoping to start it tonight. For example, at the moment that book could be “Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age”. On the other hand, if you get asked what book you recently finished you could say you have been rereading an important technical book, or reading something to understand the basics of something relevant to your current skill sets (i.e. something on a different CMS system. The purpose of questions like these is for the interviewer to get an idea if you are keeping current in your field, if you are adaptable in terms of technologies, and if you bring something new to the table.
• Bring examples of your work such as designs, reports, etc. Think about creating an interview folder or portfolio. Make sure to include extra resumes.
• Create a reference list but do not give it to the interviewer unless you are asked for it.  Let your references know in advance you are going to be using them as a reference – send them the job description and your latest resume.
• Prepare a specific set of questions for the interviewer. For example – what do you like most/least about working here?, why did you join this company?, what is the organizational structure?

Preparation is critical for a successful job interview.  You can never prepare too much.  Being prepared will increase your confidence and make you a stronger candidate.   If you are coming to the Grace Hopper Celebration planning to interview, be sure to look at all our sponsors’ websites – they are all actively recruiting and you never know which organization will be the best fit for your career.

It is a nice view here, being a Program Co-chair that is. Since the very first conference I have been a presenter, an attendee, a member of the Industry Advisory Board, Chair for the Papers/Panels/Workshops committee (twice at that!) and now I am here, in this lovely seat. It has given me a different perspective of the immense amount of effort it takes to put on this celebration (by the way – it is more than you can ever imagine). And, it really gives me an opportunity to explain why this celebration is so important to not only our industry sponsors but also potential attendees from the business world.

Yes, it is a celebration and that had always been a sticking point back at the office. A good friend, mentor and engineering fellow at Digital Equipment Corp (that is where Anita Borg worked when this all started) told me time and again, the conference needed to be more technical. I would always nod and say, “Thanks for the input Alan.” I don’t think he can say that anymore and I certainly never thought that was an issue. From the start this conference has been all about providing women a place to gather, network, learn and, well, have a bit of fun. This is a place for women to openly discuss often difficult topics related to the work environment, to discover that there are so many others like them, to share knowledge without feeling awkward or threatened, to gain technical insight into the directions of the industry, to show the world that women are, well, brilliant!

So just how can you convince your manager, sometimes it is not easy, that they should sponsor your attendance? I truly don’t know the answer. Over time I was funded by my own group and by a group that heard about my work for the conference committee and found out I had no way to get to the conference. I had many co-workers who sometimes had funding, had partial funding and on occasion, paid for their own attendance. We all worked for a large corporate sponsor. So on the one hand, the company saw value in being a sponsor but sometimes not in actually sending anyone to the conference. Maybe they were just squeezing budgets. Being creative always seemed to help. Here are a few suggestions:

1. Share key parts of the program schedule with your manager – the keynotes are great, the invited technical talks are spot on and important to all of us in industry, the phd forum and new investigator sessions really gives you a heads up on what direction things are taking, the technical sessions are expanding. The addition of the special topic tracks seems to be a big win from this perspective. The career development and mentoring opportunities are unique.
2. Point out the opportunity for networking with people from other companies in your industry. You can learn much from them!
3. Sometimes it is helpful to just refer to this as a technical conference for women and downplay the celebration part when requesting that your manager sponsor you. Friends found this sometimes helped particularly when discussing with a male manager.
4. Point out this is a great place to go for a vacation – well, maybe not this one….
5. If your company is a sponsor, hint that they must think it is important and they need to send you to find out and report back. Reporting back is always a good thing, even if you only share with other women in your organization and perhaps some HR folks and senior managers.
6. If your company is not a sponsor hint that not only should they send you, so you can take advantage of the great offering, but also that they should consider becoming a sponsor of the next conference.  There are benefits to both attendees and sponsors!
7. Let your manager know you are interested in helping to learn about retention of women in computing and you want to help them in this area. Don’t threaten to quit if they won’t send you – the job market is not all that great right now.
8. Remind your manager how much you like to dance. Okay, maybe not this one either.
9. Get involved – submit a proposal and become a presenter. Maybe you did that and discovered it is getting harder and harder to have them accepted. Some companies will give you credit for trying and send you. And, for many, your proposal will get accepted and your company might send you.
10. Get involved – join a committee. Sponsor companies will recognize the effort you do on their behalf and perhaps send you along. And, even if they don’t, you will learn a lot about working remotely, communicating with a diverse and distributed team. All skills you can use to further your career.
11. Let your managers know that they will see a great improvement in your overall attitude toward work.  You will return with an amazing sense of being energized. It is a win-win situation!
12. If all else fails, consider splitting the cost with your company. Have them cover the conference fees, you pay travel and then find someone to share a hotel room with. Lots of folks do this. Last year I shared a room with the conference general chair. Figure out which way the cost splitting works to your advantage, take note of the discounted registration for industry people paying their own way.

Over the years I have tried to remain optimistic that I could find a way to attend the conference. My company went through two mergers, one the largest in the industry just a few years ago. I have been to all but 3 conferences. I have learned so much. I have made lifelong friends. I believe that Anita and Telle had a spectacular vision when they came up with the idea. I believe that, although perhaps initially rolling over in her grave, Admiral Grace Hopper would wholeheartedly approve of how far we have come. And, I truly believe attending that this celebration is one of the best investments you (and your company) can make in your career.

Every year the Grace Hopper Celebration has grown. The 10th Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is distinguished by an increase in technical content with four technical tracks, along with the traditional New Investigators and PhD forums Our previous “View from the Program Chairs” letter mentioned the Open Source Track ending with a Hack-for-Good session, a Human-Computer Interface (HCI) Track with a field trip to the GVU Center at Georgia Tech, and a new Technical Research Papers Track. Here we take a closer look at each of these along with the Invited Technical Talk Track.

An exciting addition this year is the Technical Research Paper track where all submissions went through a blind review process. Technical papers had previously been included with the submissions for Panels, Workshops, and Presentations. However, with the increased content the conference steering committee responded by creating this new track. The papers represent one person’s or a group’s research/area of expertise, is very specific to that area of research/expertise, and allows for in-depth discussion of that technical topic. There will be 8 talks covering a wide variety of topics including security, distributed computing, infrastructure and more. These talks are being presented by researchers from both industry and academia. This new track is complementary to the Invited Technical Speakers Track.

The Invited Technical Track features seven leading technical women who are working at the cutting edge of computing technologies. The invited speakers span a wide range of technical topic areas and institutions: Catherine Baudin from eBay Research Lab (text mining), Carla Gomes from Cornell University (computational sustainability), Susan Graham from UC Berkeley (programming language implementation), Claudia Bauzer Medeiros from University of Campinas in Brazil (managing scientific data), Lucila Ohno-Machado from UC San Diego (healthcare information technology), Jan Moolman from Association for Progressive Communications (technology to end violence against women), and Fernanda Viegas from Flowing Media (visualization as a medium). Get your seats early for these talks as they fill up quickly!

The conference steering committee is always faced with a challenge when discussion turns to special tracks. Last year, we had a great robotics track. In the past few years we have seen an increase in interest in the Open Source community. Our solution, a special, dedicated Open Source Track. OSS leaders will introduce participants to the career opportunities of Open Source Software and how to get started. Panelists from various organizations will discuss humanitarian causes targeted by Open Source Software developers. The track culminates in a Codeathon for Humanity where participants team up to build software that directly helps those in need. This track was created specifically for us by key women in the open source community.

Never wanting to our job to be easy, the steering committee also felt we had a unique opportunity to offer a Human Computer Interaction track along with an offsite laboratory tour of the GVU Center at Georgia Tech. During the tour demonstrations by Georgia Tech Faculty and students will illustrate first hand how research in human-centered computing is fostered by crossing the disciplinary boundaries in collaborations with experts in science, engineering, design, art, and the humanities. The HCI Track will include an overview the career path of a researcher and practitioner in HCI, the study of the interaction between people (users) and computers. Several technical women in HCI will share their career stories, addressing both challenges and opportunities that HCI work provides.

You might not realize it, but we started planning for this spectacular conference in July 2009. For us, it is wonderful to see the schedule come together, the letters of acceptance go out to the hundreds of presenters, the keynotes lined up, all just in time for us to start work on next year’s conference.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. This year’s conference theme, Collaborating Across Boundaries, highlights collaboration across boundaries of: academics, industry and government; international borders; multidisciplinary aspects of computer science; K-12 and higher education. There are probably more but you get the gist. It is a very broad set of topics.

This is a milestone conference. Not only is this the 10th celebration, it is the largest and we have responded to your input by adding new tracks, new collaborations, all at an exciting venue. This year the program committee saw an increase in the number of papers, panels and workshops that were submitted for review. Wow. So many great ideas. We have seen an increased interest in the conference from both academia and industry, here in the US and abroad. We are truly getting noticed.

Here, in this first article in our “View from the Program Chairs” series we take a look at many of the conference features and a closer look at a new event, the new Career Fair, and the Open Source track as well as the Technical Papers track.

In response to requests from our industry partners, the committee has added a Career Fair to be held on Tuesday (Note that is a day earlier than usual! Be sure to mark your calendars.) The Career Fair will have simultaneous tracks where you can meet up with our many sponsors who are hiring and also where you can work on your resume. In addition to the Career Fair and Resume Clinic there will be a Women of Color Workshop on Tuesday.

On Wednesday we will have the Phd Forum and New Investigator talks, and lots of career development workshops for both industry and academia. These will be followed by the poster session and opening reception.

After that great start the conference will have 10 tracks for you to ponder on both Thursday and Friday. (remember, it is the10th anniversary). We highly recommend you attend the Newcomers session on Wednesday to get tips for selecting from the wide variety of choices. The tracks are focused on Academia, Industry, Technical, Student, Career, our Theme track, Invited Technical Speakers, a special Steering Committee track, an Open Source track and an HCI track. There are Executive Forums, Leadership workshops and more.

The Open Source technical track is being designed specifically for the conference by a team of women who are dedicated to increasing the number of women involved in the open source community. A series of talks and hands on exercises will lead you through the process of getting started and understanding the tools out there.

In addition to the Open Source track we will be presenting a special track on Human Computer Interaction (HCI). This will be highlighted in our next article, along with some of the other special topics and presenters that we have lined up.

All in all this is going to be a very exciting conference!

When you register for the conference, you’ll be given the option to add your Twitter name to our list of GHC10 attendees and, if you’re presenting, to our list of GHC10 speakers. This will make it easier for presenters and attendees to connect through Twitter. It also makes it easier for the GHC Twitter account (@ghc) to follow you and assist with questions about the conference.

Here’s how to make the most of Twitter for GHC 2010:

• Follow @ghc for Grace Hopper Celebration updates on Twitter.
• Start your tweet with “@ghc” to address a comment (suggestion: introduce yourself!) or question to the GHC twitterer.
• Find out what others are saying about the conference using our hashtag #ghc10
• Join in by including the #ghc10 hashtag in your conference-related tweets.
• When you register for the conference, add your Twitter name to our list of GHC10 attendees and, if you’re presenting, to our list of GHC10 speakers.
• Complete your Twitter profile with a picture, bio, and link to your website or blog so other participants can tell who you are.

Remember that if your profile is protected, others will not be able to view your tweets by search or through the lists unless they go through the process of getting your permission.

If you’ve wondered who is behind all those @ghc tweets, our primary twitterer is BJ Wishinsky, Communities Program Manager at the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI). Assisting from time to time are other ABI staff and, as we get closer to the conference, volunteers from our GHC 2010 Communities Committee. Watch for more information on the committee in an upcoming newsletter.

For those not yet familiar with Twitter, here’s a short video by Common Craft to explain the concept: Twitter in Plain English.

PALO ALTO, Calif. — June 1, 2010 — The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) announced today that Carol Bartz, Chief Executive Officer, Yahoo!, Duy-Loan Le, Senior Fellow, Texas Instruments and Barbara Liskov, Institute Professor Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT will be the keynote speakers for the 10^th annual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC), to be held September 28-October 2 at the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta, Georgia.

The world’s largest gathering of women in computing in industry, academia, and government, GHC is a five-day technical conference designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. Leading researchers and industry experts discuss their current work, while special sessions focus on the role of women in today’s technology fields, including computer science, information technology, research, and engineering. Co-presented by the Anita Borg Institute and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the conference features more than 110 sessions which include panels, workshops, technical papers, Ph.D. forum, technical posters and “birds of a feather” sessions. Program offerings span 10 tracks and include a track on open source collaboration, HCI, invited technical speakers, the ACM Student Research Competition as well, as an awards celebration.  The theme of this year’s conference is “Collaborating Across Boundaries”.

GHC provides technical women with visibility, a sense of community, critical social networks and mentoring relationships that improve female representation in the field.

About This Year’s Keynote Speakers

Carol Bartz, Chief Executive Officer, Yahoo!

Carol Bartz is the chief executive officer and a director of Yahoo! Previously, Bartz served as executive chairman of the board of Autodesk, Inc. During her tenure, the company diversified its product line and grew revenues from $285 million to $1.523 billion in FY06. Bartz previously held positions at Sun Microsystems, most recently serving as vice president of worldwide field operations and an executive officer of the company. Before joining Sun, she held product line and sales management positions at Digital Equipment Corporation and 3M Corporation.  Bartz holds an honors degree in computer science from the University of Wisconsin.

Duy-Loan Le, Senior Fellow & World Wide advanced Technology Ramp Manager, Texas Instruments

Duy-Loan Le is currently the World Wide Advanced Technology Ramp Manager, development projects using innovative technology, for Texas Instruments.  In 1982, she graduated from The University of Texas in Austin with BSEE Magna Cum Laude and started as a memory design engineer at the age of 19 with Texas Instruments.  Duy-Loan received her MBA from The University of Houston in 1989. In 2002, Duy-Loan became the first Asian and the first woman to be elected to the rank of Senior Fellow. Duy-Loan holds 23 patents with 7 pending applications. Duy-Loan serves on the Board of Directors for National Instruments. Duy-Loan is a registered Professional Engineer (PE) and is frequently invited to speak at Fortune 500 companies.  Duy-Loan list of accolades includes WITI Hall of Fame, National Technologist of the Year, TimesPeople, Asian American Engineer of The Year, Who’s Who in the World, Anita Borg Institute Women of Vision Award, PINK’s Top 15 Women in Business, VANG’s Golden Torch with United States Congressional Recognition for Civic Leadership.

Barbara Liskov, Institute Professor Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT

Barbara Liskov is an Institute Professor at MIT and also Associate Provost for Faculty Equity. She is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a fellow of the ACM. Professor Liskov received the ACM Turing Award in 2009, the ACM SIGPLAN Programming Language Achievement Award in 2008, the IEEE Von Neumann medal in 2004, a lifetime achievement award from the Society of Women Engineers in 1996, and in 2003 was named one of the 50 most important women in science by Discover Magazine. Her research interests include distributed systems, replication algorithms to provide fault-tolerance, programming methodology, and programming languages. Professor Liskov’s current research projects include Byzantine-fault-tolerant storage systems, peer-to-peer computing, and support for automatic deployment of software upgrades in large-scale distributed systems.

For more information, visit:

Anita Borg Institute Announces Registration is Open for 2010 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, press release.
www.gracehopper.org, website

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, CA, Cisco, First Republic Bank, IBM, Intel, Lockheed Martin, National Science Foundation, NetApp, SAP, Sun/Oracle, Symantec, Thomson Reuters, Wilson Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, Intuit, Yahoo, Amazon, Facebook, Raytheon and ABI Government Patron NSA. For more information, visit www.anitaborg.org.

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Media Contact:
Jerri Barrett
650-857-6095
jerrib@anitaborg.org

PALO ALTO, Calif. — June 1, 2010 — The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) announced today that registration is now open for the 10^th annual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference, which will be held September 28 – October 2, 2010 at the Hyatt Regency in Atlanta, Georgia. The full program for the event is also now available online at www.gracehopper.org.

The world’s largest gathering of women in computing in industry, academia, and government, the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC) is now a five day technical conference designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. Over 600 speakers will include leading researchers and industry experts discussing their current work, while special sessions focus on the role of women in today’s technology fields, including computer science, information technology, research, and engineering. Co-presented by the Anita Borg Institute and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the conference has expanded this year to feature more than 110 sessions (panels, workshops, technical papers, Ph.D. forum, technical posters, “birds of a feather” sessions) across ten tracks,  invited technical speakers, and the ACM Student Research Competition.

Collaborating Across Boundaries – Conference Program
This year’s conference theme, “Collaborating Across Boundaries”, recognizes the significant role women play in using technology to work together across various borders including gender, scientific, discipline, social, geographical, racial or political. More than 1800 women and men from over 23 countries in industry, academia, and government are expected to turn out for this year’s event. In addition, recipients of the prestigious Anita Borg Social Impact and Technical Leadership Awards, the Anita Borg Change Agent Awards and the Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award will be announced at an Awards Ceremony on September 30th.

Sessions at this year’s GHC cover a broad range of topics.  The Conference has expanded to include Tuesday September 28^th, which will include a Career Fair with over 70 high tech companies, government labs and universities participating as well as a resume clinic and a Women of Color Workshop. Day 2 includes programs put on by the Computer Research Association (CRA-W) providing career mentoring workshops for undergraduate, graduate and early career researchers; career development sessions for women seeking employment in industry and government; a workshop for industry technical women on “Collaborative Risk Taking”, New Investigators and PhD forum sessions.  Day 3 includes an Open Source Track designed to provide a variety of offerings involving Open Source and for different audiences, culminating at the end of day with a Hack-for-Good session.  Day 4 includes a track on Human Computer Interaction put on by ABI and CHI culminating with a field trip to the GVU Center at Georgia Tech as well as a track on Technical Research Papers. Day 5 will feature the second annual K-12 Computing Teachers Workshop put on by the Anita Borg Institute and the Computer Science Teachers Association and sponsored by IBM.

The 2010 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing will feature leading women in technology:  Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo, Duy-Loan T. Le, Senior Fellow, Texas Instruments and Barbara Liskov, Institute Professor Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT as keynote speakers.

For more information visitt:

Anita Borg Institute Announces Keynote Speakers for the 10^th Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, Press Release.

Registration is now open, with super early bird discounts in effect through  July 6, 2010.  For more information, visit www.gracehopper.org.

Sponsors to-date of the 2010 Grace Hopper Celebration include Platinum Corporate Sponsors Amazon, CA, Cisco, Google, IBM, Intel, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft and NetApp.  Platinum Government Patrons include NSA.  Silver Corporate Sponsors include Facebook, Intuit, SAP, Symantec, ThoughtWorks and Yahoo.  Silver Government Patrons includes the United States Navy. Bronze Corporate Sponsors include MIT Lincoln Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory.

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, CA, Cisco, First Republic Bank, IBM, Intel, Lockheed Martin, National Science Foundation, NetApp, SAP, Sun/Oracle, Symantec, , Thomson Reuters, Wilson Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, Intuit, Yahoo, Amazon, Facebook, Raytheon and ABI Government Patron NSA. For more information, visit www.anitaborg.org.

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Media Contact:
Jerri Barrett
650-857-6095
jerrib@anitaborg.org

Each entrant presented a research poster during the poster session on the first night of the conference.  As a finalist in this poster competition, I was allowed to move on to the next round.  This required a presentation the following day for an audience of several judges.  At the end of GHC 2008, I was delighted to take home third prize, which qualified me for the grand finals.

In June 2009, I was thrilled to be chosen as a winner of the grand finals and was invited to the AMC Awards Banquet in San Diego. The Banquet is held each year to recognize professionals and academics who have made significant contributions to the field of computing. The most notable awardee that year was Barbara Liskov, who was presented with the Turing award.  When I arrived in San Diego, I learned that out of a dozen participating conferences, the three finalists had all started the competition at GHC 2008.  This speaks volumes about the quality of technical posters and talks presented at the Grace Hopper Celebration.

Besides the wonderful experience I had participating in the Student Research Competition, Grace Hopper was a great way for me to extend and renew my personal network of technical women – a resource which is invaluable to me both personally and professionally.

Attending the conference as a GHC Scholar meant that I shared a hotel suite with other scholars.  In the evenings we helped each other prepare for interviews, talked about grad school applications and gushed over the swag we’d collected.  When I started graduate school at Carnegie Mellon University this year, one of the first things I did was call up one of my roommates and fellow scholars from GHC 2008, since I knew she was still an undergrad here.  When we met for coffee, I was glad to see a familiar face in a new city.

When attending GHC, I love seeing so many people I know from regional Women in Computing conferences.  I met Deanna Kosaraju, Vice President of Programs for the Anita Borg Institute, at the Indiana Women in Computing conference just a few months before GHC 2008.  She knew that I was attending GHC as a scholar, and she invited me along with two other student scholars to tell the advisors and trustees what attending the conference had meant to us.  I was thrilled to do so, since the previous four days of presentations and discussions had left me energized and excited about working in a technical field, and I wanted to thank them for helping make the Grace Hopper Celebration what it is.

A year later, when I attended GHC 2009, I was invited to be a student member of the Anita Borg Institute advisory board.  As a member of this board, I serve as a chair of the Hopper committee, which, among other things, aims to aid regional Women in Computing conferences and encourage more women students to participate in the Grace Hopper Celebration every year.

The people I have met through Grace Hopper Conferences have given me more encouragement and invaluable advice than I could have imagined possible.  These experiences have paved the way for countless opportunities, and have helped shape me into the technical woman I am today.  Attending GHC is the opportunity of a career and a lifetime.  Don’t miss out!

Sarah Loos was a recipient of the 2008 Grace Hopper Conference Scholarship supported by the National Science Foundation.