GHC News: GRACE HOPPER CELEBRATION OF WOMEN IN COMPUTING ANNOUNCES RECORD-BREAKING TURNOUT

Largest Gathering of Technical Women in the World Presented by Anita Borg Institute Features Keynote Speakers Carol Bartz, CEO Yahoo!, Duy Loan Le, Senior Fellow, Texas Instruments and Technical Executive Plenary Panel on Collaborative Leadership for Driving Innovation

PALO ALTO, Calif. — October 1, 2010 —The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI) today announced a record-breaking turnout of 2147 attendees representing 29 countries for the first day of the 10th 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 five-day technical conference designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. Themed  “Collaborating Across Boundaries,” GHC is taking place in Atlanta, Georgia, September 28 – October 2, 2010 at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta.

“The Grace Hopper Celebration has increased in size by more than 37 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 the conference. This innovation would not be possible without the work of our industry and academia committee members who create new tracks and content each year. One example is this year’s Open Source Track, sponsored by the National Security Agency, which was developed by members of the Open Source Community. The Open Source Track culminated in an Open Source Codeathon for Humanity which included 200 coders.”
Highlights included keynote speeches by Carol Bartz, CEO, Yahoo! who spoke on Change and Duy-Loan Le, Senior Fellow, Texas Instruments who spoke on Camaraderie and Cross Gender Collaboration. A Technical Executive Plenary panel offered insights into Collaborative Leadership in Driving Innovation featuring Amy Alving, CTO, SAIC; Kelli Crane, Senior Vice President and CIO, Thomson Reuters; Romea Smith, Senior Vice President, CA Technologies; Kalpana Margabandhu, Director, WebSphere Development, IBM India Software Lab; and moderator Rebecca Norlander, Executive in Residence, Illuminate Ventures.

The Award Ceremony featured an array of technical women whose work has not only impacted the development of technology but also positively impacted the lives of other women working in technology. Award winners included:

  • The Anita Borg Social Impact Award winner Ann Quiroz Gates is the Associate Vice-President of Research and Sponsored Projects at the University of Texas at El Paso. The Anita Borg Social Impact Award is underwritten by Microsoft Research.
  • The Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award winner Laura Haas, an IBM Fellow and Director of Computer Science based at IBM Research, Almaden. The Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award is underwritten by Cisco.
  • The 2010 Denice Denton Award winner is Beth Pruitt, an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. The Denice Denton Award is underwritten by Microsoft Research.
  • The Anita Borg Change Agent Award Winners were Ana Regina Cavalcanti da Rocha, Associate Professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Graduate School of Engineering, Computer Science Department; Gayatri Buragohain the founder of Feminist Approach to Technology (FAT), a pioneering organization that empowers women using technology; and Tayana Etienne a full-time professor in the Science Department of the State University of Haiti and the director of the MBDS Master in Haiti. The Anita Borg Change Agent Awards are underwritten by Google.

GHC features more than 117 panels, workshops and birds of a feather sessions with 436 speakers in all. For more information visit www.gracehopper.org.

TechWomen Initiative Empowers Women in Technology, Supports Collaboration between U.S. and Middle East

In a separate announcement that was issued during the conference, the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) has launched TechWomen, a new initiative to enable women in the field of technology from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to reach their full potential.  TechWomen is a professional mentorship and exchange program developed in response to President Obama’s June 2009 speech in Cairo calling for more collaborative efforts between the U.S. and the Middle East that harness the strength of global business, technology and education. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton first announced the TechWomen program on April 28th during President Obama’s Entrepreneurship Summit. The new initiative will be administered by the Institute of International Education and its West Coast Center in San Francisco, in partnership with the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology. For more information, visit: Silicon Valley Leaders to Mentor Technical women from the Middle East and North Africa.

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.

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

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