Professor of Medicine and Founding Chief, Division of Biomedical Informatics, University of California, San Diego

Healthcare has lagged behind other industries in the utilization of information technology. Some reasons for this gap are related to the complex nature of physician-patient interactions, lack of systems that can seamlessly be embedded in clinical workflows, and limited collaboration and communication that cross the boundaries between medicine, computer science, and engineering. Changes in the healthcare landscape in the U.S. provide a unique opportunity to develop new ideas for integrating information technology into healthcare. Reducing costs and providing healthcare for all requires the development of more efficient systems of care, in which not only public health indicators and institutional expenditures are monitored, but also objective quality of care measures and individual patient outcomes. High resolution monitoring cannot be achieved without computer-based systems that are able to integrate data from clinical encounters, billing systems, and research studies for meaningful data analysis, pattern recognition, and high fidelity simulations.

There are a variety of areas in which computer scientists can partner with clinicians and other decision makers, but the development of such partnerships requires a systematic approach. In biomedical informatics training programs, the goal is to provide training in a complementary area for individuals with computer science or health sciences backgrounds, and to train the next generation of researchers. While this covers important ground, more needs to be done. There is currently limited work in the area of training the existing generation of computer scientists and clinician leaders on how to work together to approach current healthcare challenges in a novel way. I will present a model for crossing disciplinary and geographical barriers in order to promote health and alleviate the burden of disease, and present several examples in which this could be done today.

For more information click here.

Panelists: Margaret Dickey-Kurdziolek (Virginia Polytechnic Institute), Manuel Pérez-Quiñones (Virginia Polytechnic Institute), Stephanie Ludi (Rochester Institute of Technology), Amy Csizmar Dalal (Carleton College), Bonnie MacKellar (St. John’s University), and Megan Olsen (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)

Classroom climates can greatly influence student decisions regarding their education and careers, and as such, if we hope to increase diversity in computing we need to build classroom environments that are welcoming to a diverse set of students. In this panel, we will bring together educators who are concerned with the classroom climates we create through our pedagogical decisions, and facilitate an interactive dialog on experiences, instruction, and strategies.

Presenter: Nancy D. Solomon (Nancy D. Solomon, LLC)

The flailing economy we’re in dictates that your expend-ability is directly tied to the Impact that you’re having on your organization.

The women who are keeping their jobs, getting recruited, and receiving promotions are fewer in number, but more distinguishable than a year ago. They are the ones whose presence and performance have such a high positive impact on their organization that they have become indispensable.

TGRID: Grid Computing For Computational Problem Solving in a Liberal Arts Environment

Panelists: Sarah Monisha Pulimood (The College of New Jersey)

A grid computing environment can harness campus computing resources to collaboratively solve large computational problems. We discuss the motivation for and challenges of developing such an environment at a small liberal arts institution. A prototype of this system successfully determined the value of the Jacobstahl function j(n) for all n < 50. Previously, this value for the computation intensive algorithm was known only for all n < 21.

Panelists: Erika Flint (IBM) and Deb Raudins (IBM)

Women in Africa continue to suffer from a lack of educational, technical, and professional opportunities which limits the potential of these women in every aspect of their lives. In this session we review the experiences and lessons learned by a team charged with the mission of improving the lives and opportunities of an East-African community through an in-country experience building technical and educational solutions for a new world class university.

Panelists: Jennifer Marsman (Microsoft), Randi Zuckerberg (Facebook), and BJ Wishinsky (Anita Borg Institute)

Are you a Facebook addict? Do you document your life on Twitter? Social media is a great way to keep in touch with friends, but it can also help you in the business world. Learn some tips & tricks to find a job, improve your business, collaborate better, and make a difference in the world using social media.

Panelists: Brianna Havlik (HP), M. Bernardine Dias (Carnegie Mellon University), Frances West (IBM), Jenny Lay-Flurrie (Microsoft), and Selena Chan (Intel)

Although the computer science industry is not known for helping others, there are many computer scientists who are using their skills to give back to society, for example in the field of assistive technology, helping those with disabilities. This panel serves as a showcase for some of the inventive technology being introduced in the assistive technology arena. This panel will demo some of the smart advancements in assistive technology.

Presenter: Elizabeth Mynatt (Georgia Institute of Technology)

Human-centered Computing (HCC) investigates socio-technical systems drawing from the fields of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Social Computing, Industrial Design, and Learning and Cognitive Sciences. The heart of the matter is that HCC recognizes the dance between people and computing technologies. New technologies present novel opportunities and people respond through use, disuse, adoption, assimilation and rejection. The overarching activity of appropriation pushes back on technology design to inform the next steps. This dance can be beautifully fluid, full of new energy, and it can be frustratingly awkward. Throughout this field there are tremendous opportunities to study and invent, design and observe the role of computing technologies in all walks of life.

In this talk, I present a brief history of the intellectual agendas that have come together to inform Human-Centered Computing. Looking forward, I present the agenda that informs our community today, Unlocking Human Potential through Technical Innovation. Drawing from the seven themes that anchor the work in the GVU Center at Georgia Tech, I will present examples of how computing research can enable Creativity, Wellness, Independence, Emotion, Learning, Persuasion and Trust. These challenges push past questions of interaction design and look at the fundamental experience of computing and its role in everyday life.

For more information click here.

The Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award is given to a woman who has inspired the women’s technology community through outstanding technological and social contributions.

Award Winner: Laura Haas (IBM Almaden Research Center)

Integrating People and Information: My Career in Industrial Research
We depend on information, in both our work and personal lives. But the information we need is scattered across many sources, and must be brought together into a usable form – a smile sounding but challenging task that has been the focus of my career. I will describe this work and my path to IBM Fellow, with particular attention to the role that collaboration with a broad variety of colleagues has played.

For more information click here.

Panelists: Arshia Khan (College of St. Scholastica), Chery Takkunen (College of St. Scholastica), and Cynthia Welsh (Cloquet Public Schools)

Collaboration between computer science, teacher education faculty and a middle/high school science teacher resulted in a Twitter integrated science pilot program that attempted to capitalize on the career-decision making window of opportunity of 10 to 15 year old girls. The challenges, successes and logistics of the pilot program will be shared as a possible solution to positively impact the attitudes of adolescent girls towards technology through social media.

Panelists: Lynda Grindstaff (Intel), Mary Anne Egan (Siena College), Karin Meyer (Intuit), Phyllis Stewart Pires (SAP), Elizabeth Psihos (Westlaw Business, Thomson Reuters), and Lalitha Ramanathan (Symantec)

Are you considering having a child but not sure how that may impact your career? Do you have children and are strained by juggling all of life’s demands? Come to this fun and interactive panel of working mothers who will discuss their personal challenges, triumphs, and interesting perspectives on how to keep your career on the right track before, during, and through your childbearing years.

Associate Professor and Director, Institute for Computational Sustainability, Cornell University

Humanity’s use of Earth’s resources is threatening our planet and the livelihood of future generations. Computer science and related disciplines can — and should — play a key role in increasing the efficiency and effectiveness in the way we manage and allocate our natural resources.

Computational Sustainability is a new emerging interdisciplinary research field with the overall goal of developing computational models, methods, and tools to help manage the balance between environmental, economic, and societal needs for a sustainable future. In this talk, I will provide examples of Computational Sustainability problems, ranging from wildlife preservation and biodiversity, to poverty mitigation, to large-scale deployment and management of renewable energy sources. I will highlight overarching computational themes in constraint reasoning and optimization and interactions with machine learning, and dynamical systems. I will also discuss the need for a new approach that views such challenging computational problems as “natural” phenomena, amenable to a scientific methodology, in which principled experimentation, to explore problem parameter spaces and hidden problem structure, plays as prominent a role as formal analysis.

For more information click here.

Panelists: Ellen Walker (Hiram College), Valerie Barr (Union College), Andrea Danyluk (Williams College), Andrea Lawrence (Spelman College), Catherine McGeoch (Amherst College), Tia Newhall (Swarthmore College), Ann Smith (Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota), and Ellen Spertus (Google and Mills College)

Faculty at liberal arts colleges face unique opportunities and challenges that differ from those of the research-oriented universities where most candidates earn their Ph.Ds. Many women are not fully aware of this career opportunity. We will discuss the differences between teaching at a liberal arts college and a research-oriented institution, how to prepare for and obtain a liberal arts faculty position, and how to have a happy and successful career.

Panelists: Wei Lin (Symantec), Rachel Weinstein Petterson (Google), Becky Brown (Intel), Angela LoSasso (HP), Cathy Lasser (IBM), Joann Ordille (Avaya), Meredith Ringel Morris (Microsoft Research and University of Washington), and Jennifer El (Symantec)

Social media is transforming the way we live and do business. Revolutions in advertising, product referral, customer retention, conversion and support have happened because of digital social networks. Are you aware of these revolutions? What does industry do to understand and leverage these changes? How do they intersect with your work, family and social life? How will these revolutions affect members of the Glass House generation?

Presetners: Sonia M. Arteaga (University of California, Santa Cruz)

This paper reports the design requirements of personalized mobile persuasive games to motivate teenagers to start and continue being physically active. Being physically active can lead to reduced risks of having weight and cardiovascular problems; however efforts in this direction had variable success. Designing technology that will be engaging and motivating for teenagers requires an understanding of the factors that contribute to behavior adoption in teenagers. To understand these, we approach the design from several theoretical models: Theory of Planned Behavior, Theory of Meaning Behavior, and Personality Theory. Mobile applications can help overcome barriers to exercise, such as transportation and access to facilities. They are also personal and pervasive. Games were chosen because they are perceived to be fun by teenagers. Results from our study are summarized, as well as lessons learned and future directions of this work.

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Senior Citizens Barriers to Computing

Presetners: Janine Hernandez (Norfolk State University) and Felicia Doswell (Norfolk State University)

The Internet is a vital tool in today’s society and will continue to be a great part of our everyday lives. Many government and commercial organizations are using drastic means to encourage citizens to use the Internet to conduct business such as charging for non-Internet transactions. Such activities are almost mandating that all persons become computer literate and use the Internet. However, there is still a digital divide among various groups within the United States. It is imperative that we find a way to close the gap for the group of Americans that have little or no computer experience. The most underrepresented group of computer and Internet users are older adults over the age of 55. Yet, acquisition of information such as daily finances, health issues, and communication are vital to continued independent living for this group. This research brings together seniors and computer technology to document, address and discuss solutions to usability and accessibility barriers to computer and Internet use. This research effort presents data in two areas: computer literacy and experience, and exploration of the effect that computer training has on decreasing some of the barriers to computing for older adults.

Panelists: Sara Nordhoff (Forte Foundation), Susan Morrison (John Deere IVS), Leslie LaChance (Delta Airlines), and Stephanie Espy (MathSP)

Learn how you can launch your technical degree and experience into an exciting and fulfilling career in business leadership. Diverse and successful women in business with technical backgrounds will tell their stories and share advice on how the their degrees coupled with an MBA launched their careers ranging from entrepreneurship to financial management to product quality. Panelists will also share tips on applying to graduate and MBA programs.

Panelists: Cindy Padnos (Illuminate Ventures), Vivek Wadhwa (UC Berkeley), and Linda Bernardi (StraTerra Partners, LLC)

Entrepreneurs Founders and Leaders still do not include many women, but this is starting to change. Only 5% of Venture funding includes women founders. This topic has garnered a great deal of attention this year, including a front page article in the New York Times (View article). This panel explores the data behind women entrepreneurs and explores how to attract more women entrepreneurs.

Panelists: Elizabeth Churchill (Yahoo! Research), Amy Bruckman (Georgia Institute of Technology), Mary Czerwinski (Microsoft), Katherine Isbister (New York Polytechnic University), Kerry Rodden (YouTube), and M.C. Schraefel (University of Southampton)

Human Computer Interaction (HCI) is defined as “the study of interaction between people (users) and computers”. The objective of this panel is to illustrate the various career paths as a researcher or practitioner of HCI – addressing both established and emerging opportunities. Several women will share career stories and illustrate how they have sought/created opportunities, mentor and/or are mentored, face challenges and leverage social networks and professional bodies.

For more information click here.

The Anita Borg Change Agent Awards celebrate the accomplishments of technical women from developing countries who are working in their community to attract and support women in technology. This year’s winners are Ana Regina Cavalcanti da Rocha from Brazil, Gayatri Buragohain from India and Tayana Etienne from Haiti.

Award Winners: Gayatri Buragohain (India), Ana Regina Cavalcanti da Rocha (Brazil), and Tayana Etienne (Haiti)

Moderator: Elisa Camahort Page (BlogHer)

Why More Women in Technology?: Gayatri Burogohain
Before starting the organization Feminist Approach to Technology (FAT), I spoke to many well-know people in the field of development, women empowerment as well as technology, trying to get ideas and support from them. I was surprised by the reaction form many influential people and their questions. Today, the questions have changed. There is more willingness to listen than to fight back with counter arguments. I would like to analyze the change.

How to Influence the Career of Other Women in Technology: Ana Regina da Rocha
Although women make up 40% of the Brazilian workforce, they are typically found in low paid jobs. Successful women in science and technology are rare. Is it possible to change this picture? What can be done to influence other women’s careers? I will present the programs I have instituted at the Federal University of Rio d Janeiro to encourage young female students in their professional development. These program have increased retention of women in out Mater and PhD Programs in Software Engineering. Now women represent 50% of my graduate students.

Role Model in ICT in Under Developed Countries: Tayanna Etienne
ICT (Information and Communication Technology) represents a critical opportunity for under developed countries if and only if it can be harnessed by enough indigenous problem-solving minds motivated to tackle their own local challenge. My work in the academic world an as an entrepreneur in the Haitian IT industry is based on simple objective; how to mobilize this critical mass of problem-solving minds and how to make the case for innovation as a way out of our most severe issues.

For more information click here.

Panelists: M. Bernardine Dias (Carnegie Mellon University), Ermine A. Teves (Carnegie Mellon University), Sarah M. Belousov (Carnegie Mellon University), Yonina Cooper (Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar), Jamie Lockwood (Yahoo!), and BeLinda Nichols (Google)

Education e-Village (E-Village) aims to create an online community, where educators from around the world can share ideas, experiences, expertise, educational resources, and strategies customized for effective technology education in developing regions. In this panel discussion, we will present E-Village’s motivation and background, explain its objectives and design, provide industry perspectives on the importance of this work, and encourage discussion of the project and ideas for future directions.

Panelists: Caroline Simard (Anita Borg Institute), Mark Bregman (Symantec), Carol Thompson Eidt (Microsoft), Judy Priest (Cisco), and Josephine Cheng (IBM)

New research shows that technical women are less likely than men to advance in Individual Contributor positions, and women in upper tiers IC positions are rare. Women at the mid-level are faced with choosing between advancement through individual contribution or management, and there are no established programs to help women make this choice. We seek to understand what it really takes to advance as an Individual Contributor.

Project Coordinator MDG 3, Women’s Networking Support Programme, Association for Progressive Communications

Women all over the world are discovering the potency of technologies and using them in advancing their rights especially in the campaign to end violence against women. Advocacy to stop violence against women is a powerful force that has freed women from harm and abuse. To this day however, violence continues to be a reality for many women.

This presentation is about how technology is changing the ways women experience and confront violence. To some extent, technologies have aided perpetrators in harassing, exerting control and even inflicting harm through mobile devices, spy software, email tampering, tiny surveillance cameras, GPS technologies, cyber stalking and misogyny in virtual reality environments. On the other hand, the internet has been creatively used by women in poorly resourced countries with limited access to technology. Girls in South Africa are using their cell phones to stop teen pornography. Filipina migrant workers can rely on an SOS SMS Helpline to report abuse while they work overseas. Village women trained in digital storytelling share experiences of healing and survival from the armed conflict in Uganda.

As tech-savvy women, we have a role to play in shaping technologies to keep women safe. Technology practice is as much part of creating technology as is engineering and design. How can we demand more of technology and use it to protect, exercise and advance women’s rights?

For more information click here.

Panelists: Marie desJardins (University of Maryland, Baltimore County), Cristina Nita-Rotaru (Purdue University), Kelly Shaw (University of Richmond), Laurie Williams (North Carolina State University), and Sara Sprenkle (Washington & Lee University)

Feeling overwhelmed in your new role as faculty member? Wondering how to effectively balance research, teaching, and service as well as work with life?

This panel provides frank advice from successful, recently promoted associate professors, who have a unique perspective on making a successful transition from graduate student to leading a research program and teaching in a university or college that requires research scholarship.

Panelists: Linda Apsley (Microsoft), Linda Bernardi (StraTerra Partners, LLC), Alyssa Henry (Amazon Web Services), Wei Lin (Symantec), Brian Pawlowski (NetApp), and Radha Ratnaparkhi (IBM Research)

Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand computer, application, and network access through the internet. Cloud services can be easily engineered, rapidly provisioned and released with lower cost and minimal management effort or service provider interaction. Players across the IT industry have announced cloud computing efforts. Participants in this session will hear about the opportunities, the challenges, and the benefits of cloud computing.

The Revolution Driven by NAND Memory in Client & Enterprise Storage

Presenter: Amber Huffman (Intel)

• Solid state drives (SSDs) and caches built from NAND memory are eliminating the traditional storage bottleneck. • System architecture must be re-evaluated for new levels of storage performance, previously not contemplated. • Opportunities abound to utilize the platform in new ways now that large datasets can be accessed in a high performance way. • Client and Enterprise platforms are experiencing the revolution of NAND memory, but in different ways.

Panelists: Mary Jo Schrade (Microsoft), Rhonda Shantz (Symantec), Sarah Seltzer (Microsoft), Erica Christensen La Blanc (CA Technologies), Cristina Fernandez (National Center for Missing & Exploited Children ), and Robert Leslie Nichols (Boys & Girls Clubs of America)

Today’s criminals are becoming highly sophisticated and technically astute. They use the Internet to perform cyber crimes such as fraud and identity theft, child pornography, computer network and information systems security breaches, extortion, and even terrorism. This panel will discuss how technology companies are partnering with non-profit organizations to fight crime and protect our children and will discuss potential technical careers at non-profit organizations and for profit companies and working on technologies that helps humanity.

Panelists: Ellen Spertus (Google and Mills College), Cecilia Aragon (University of Washington and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Erin Chapple (Microsoft), Tamara Holden-Gurin (County of Alameda, California), and Taylor Van Vleet (YouTube)

Computer science majors applying for their first jobs often do not know what to expect from or how to prepare for their first technical interviews. A group of experienced software professionals with extensive interviewing and hiring experience at different sized-companies will explain through presentations, mock interviews, and question and answer what companies are looking for, the different ways candidates are assessed, and how best to prepare.

Do You Have What it Takes to Process Huge Amounts of Data?

Panelists: Claris Castillo (IBM Research) and Barbara Poblete (Yahoo! Research)

Hadoop MapReduce is a framework for easily writing applications, which processes vast amounts of data in-parallel on large clusters, in a reliable, fault-tolerant manner. Empowered with data analytic tools such as Hadoop MapReduce and its extensions, any scientist can design complex data intensive applications. This session is intended as an introduction to Hadoop MapReduce, and our goal is to provide a basis for further learning on this topic.

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Real World Agile Software Development – A ScrumMaster’s Retrospective

Presenter: Melody Hancock (Raytheon Missile Systems)

Team development, team dynamics and team interactions across multiple technical disciplines are crucial to the success of large R&D efforts. This presentation covers the use of Agile practices in a collaborative technical environment including software developers, signal processing algorithm developers, integrators and testers of embedded software. The experiences of an integrated team of twelve engineers tasked with a challenging schedule and performance objectives will be presented from the ScrumMaster’s perspective.

Invited Technical Speaker: Fernanda B. Viegas, Research Scientist, Google

Data visualization has historically been accessible only to the elite in academia, business, and government. It was “serious” technology, created by experts for experts. In recent years, however, web-based visualizations–ranging from political art projects to news stories–have reached audiences of millions. Meanwhile, new initiatives in government, aimed at all citizens, point to an era of increased transparency.

What will this new era of data transparency and expressiveness look like–and what are the implications for technologists who work with data? To help answer this question, I report on work into public data analysis and visualization. Some of the results come from Many Eyes, a “living laboratory” web site where people may upload their own data, create interactive visualizations, and carry on conversations. Political discussions, citizen activism, religious conversations, game playing, and educational exchanges are all happening on Many Eyes. Finally, I discuss artistic projects that complicate and subvert the traditional notion of data visualization by highlighting its potential as an expressive medium that invites emotion.

For more information click here.

The Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award is given each year to a junior non-tenured faculty member under the age of 40 at an academic or research institution pursuing high-quality research in any field of engineering or physical sciences while contributing significantly to promoting diversity in his/her environment.

Award Winner: Beth Pruitt (Stanford University)

Roads Forged and the Roads Ahead
Role models like Denice Denton forged paths for women in academia, engineering, and leadership roles, particularly in the interdisciplinary field of MEMS. Like her, I strive to be accessible and open to collaborators and students and to create scientific and personal connections in my work. I will discuss the fascinating opportunities at the intersection of engineering and biology, and how new connections enable new discoveries of the role of mechanics in biology.

For more information click here.

This town hall is focused on bringing the broader community together to address the critical equity issues in computer science education. In order to build solutions we need to really understand the problems but too often, we get mired in despair or celebrate victories that never really make a difference. This event is about finding each other and finding real solutions that impact real classrooms and real kids. It is about real questions such as: How do we communicate more effectively? What does real help look like? What do teachers need right now? How can faculty, researchers, and industry women help on an organizational or individual level?

Panelists: Kathleen E Naughton (Hewlett-Packard), Teresa A. Dahlberg (University North Carolina, Charloote), Sandy Lieske (Hewlett-Packard), Jody Mahoney (Anita Borg Institute), and Rebeca J Parsons (ThoughtWorks)

This panel is to explore the personal boundaries that many of us navigate to reach success in our careers. As we all move through our careers, there are many opportunities and choices that are presented to us. Our panelists have moved from junior engineer to vice president, from “stay-at-home” mom to industry, from industry to academia and visa-versa, from private sector to government regulatory, and into non-profit sectors.

Panelists: Gayatri Buragohain (Feminist Approach to Technology), Kiran Grover(IBM India), Mani Soni Abrol (Yahoo Inc.) and Sargeeta Bhattachalya (Intel Labs, India)

India being known for its diverse culture has its own challenges for its technical women, which have to be approached with special treatment. In this discussion panelists offer perspective on the gender gap and the challenges faced by women in the computing industry, research, academia, Free and Open Source Software and the efforts made to address the same.

Panelists: Lisa M Marvel (US Army Research Laboratory), Nancy Amato (Texas A&M University), Lori Pollock (University of Delaware), Tiffani Williams (Texas A&M University), and Joanne J. McGrath Cohoon (University of Virginia)

Collaborating with a diverse group of researchers can have a positive impact on research projects, individual researchers, and society. However, overcoming geographical and disciplinary boundaries can be challenging. The objective of this panel is to help mentoring teams successfully negotiate these boundaries. We will accomplish this by role-playing ineffective mentoring situations and then constructing and replaying better solutions with the assistance of the audience guided by the panel moderator.

Panelists: Kathleen Naughton (Hewlett-Packard), Cathy Lasser (IBM), Wei Lin (Symantec), Divya Kolar Sunder (Intel), Vidya Dinamani (Intuit), and Patty Lopez (Intel)

Women have a greater opportunity for influencing product design, marketing campaigns, and appropriate media portrayals of women in technology by recognizing and leveraging our considerable collective buying power. This can be accomplished reactively by responding to marketing surveys and after-product purchases, but a proactive role is more timely and has a greater impact through the effective use of our ever evolving social media. We discuss ways to leverage our collective voices.

Crossing Boundaries to Build and Sustain a Massive Web Mail Service

Presenter: Julia Lee (Yahoo! Inc.)

The presentation describes several design considerations required to build the massive scale, highly popular, and sustainable web mail service that is Yahoo! Mail. With over 300 million users globally on Yahoo! Mail, many of the design considerations and boundaries crossed to build such a service solve technical and socio-organizational problems unique to massive scale Internet services.

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Oblivious Context Sensitive Communications

Presenter: Chaitrali Amrutkar (Georgia Institute of Technology)

Context aware applications provide users with a rich set of services using information such as time and location. This information is usually sensitive and may violate user privacy. We present a framework for developing two-party applications capable of making decisions based on contextual information without revealing either participant’s inputs. We demonstrate the ability to create efficient context-sensitive applications based on private searching, which can run on hardware constrained mobile devices. A technical report is available upon request.

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User Identification on Smart Phones

Presenter: Saira Zahid (University of Dundee)

Smart Phones are increasingly replacing laptops with the increase in the processing and memory capacity and decreasing sizes. They are used to store user’s sensitive information/data. Therefore, it is important to authenticate legitimate users of a Smart Phone and to block imposters. The presentation focuses on an intelligent scheme that identifies the user of the Smart Phone with 98% accuracy thereby providing an effective solution to ID theft.

Panelists: Shikoh Gitau (University of Capetown), Sally-Jean Shackleton (WomensNet), Nithya Sambasivan (University of California, Irvine), Mary Hudachek-Buswell, (Clayton State University), Jill Dimond (Georgia Institute of Technology), Jean-Yves Hamel (United Nations Development Programme), Jan Moolman (The Association for Progressive Communications Women’s Networking Support Programme), and Stefanie Markham (Georgia State University)

Violence against women is now recognized as a human rights issue mainly addressed by women’s rights activists,human rights defenders and some governments. However, the inclusion of technology as a mitigator and extendor requires that technologist be part of this discussion.This panel brings together feminist groups, women activist, development workers and technologist to discuss ways in which ICTs can be designed and optimized as tools to fight against gender based violence.

Panelists: Diane Curtis (Microsoft), Lindsay Lindstrom (Microsoft), and Tara Walker (Microsoft)

This workshop is a hands-on experience. Similar to last year’s Systers Code Sprint, students will be able to work directly with industry professionals to learn new technologies, put together project plans and, ultimately, to create technology for social good.

Students should bring their laptops and have an interactive session with professionals where they will create their Project Plan and start working on a project to do social good in their community.

Panelists: Joan Francioni (Winona State University), Mary Jean Harrold (Georgia Institute of Technology), Laura Dillon (Michigan State University), and Ellen Zegura (Georgia Institute of Technology)

This panel will facilitate a discussion on how a faculty member can move to the level of leadership within their university or research community. Examples include becoming department chair or dean, chairing major committees within the university, or organizing and managing large research grants or centers on campus and with other universities. The panelists will talk about ways to have an impact through academic leadership and the challenges and rewards of this kind of leadership.

Panelists: Rebecca E. Grinter (Georgia Institute of Technology), Shaowen Bardzell (Indiana University), Meredith Ringel Morris (Microsoft Research and University of Washington), Erika Shehan Poole (Penn State University), and Divya Ramachandran (University of California, Berkeley)

Human Computer Interaction has its roots in workplace studies focused on optimizing “man-machine interfaces.” Much has changed in the landscape that was eventually renamed human-computer interaction. An focus on optimization has broadened to an appreciation for the overall experience of computing systems. HCI work has broken out of the office and into the home and on the body. More radically, researchers now recognize the importance of human-computer interaction as fundamental to much of human activity. The objective of this panel is to illustrate the vision, scope and ambition of some of these new voices in the HCI community. Several women will describe their current research at this early and formative stage of their careers.

For more information click here.

The Anita Borg Social Impact Award honors an individual or team that has caused technology to have a positive impact on the lives of women and society or has caused women to have a significant impact on the design and use of technology.

Award Winner: Ann Quiroz Gates (University of Texas at El Paso)

Building Cooperative Teams to Foster Student Success
To create change in the number of people who succeed in higher education, in particular, those from underrepresented groups who choose STEM fields, it is important to acknowledge that there is a large segment of our society who have the capability to be successful, but lack appropriate support structures. This talk describes efforts to create cooperative environments that empower students and faculty to reach higher levels of productivity and achievement.

For more information click here.

Panelists: Catherine S Ashcraft (University of Colorado Boulder/NCWIT), Leisa Thompson (University of Virginia), Wendy Dubow (University of Colorado/NCWIT)

This panel will discuss research on three topics highly relevant to educators and professionals interested in increasing women’s participation in computing: 1) addressing unconscious bias in the supervisory relationship, 2) reducing effects of stereotype threat, and 3) understanding roles men play in gender reform. This session will provide knowledge and skills that can increase the pace and improve the quality of women’s participation and advancement in computing.

Panelists: Caitlin Sadowski (University of California at Santa Cruz), Alexandra Holloway (University of California at Santa Cruz), Laurian Vega (Virginia Polytechnic Institute), Ann-Marie Horcher (Nova Southeastern University), Melissa C. Smith (Clemson University), and Susan Sim (University of California at Irvine)

The Grace Hopper conference celebrates all women in computer science. However, the many women who attend this conference fill more roles that just the role of a computer scientist. They are also mothers, grandmothers, sisters, wives, and daughters. In this panel-based BoF session we discuss the important role of motherhood in particular reference to its impact on young computer science academics and beyond.

Panelists: Barbara Poblete (Yahoo! Research), Ioana Burcea (University of Toronto), Rosa Enciso (Microsoft), Cindy Rubio-Gonzalez (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Alma Juarez-Dominguez (University of Waterloo), Saliha Pehlivan (University of Central Florida), Valeria Herskovic (University of Chile), Savita Kini (Cisco), and Sangeeta Bhattacharya (Intel Labs, India)

This Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) session aims to bring together technical women interested in collaborating with and helping the growth of technical communities in developing countries. The BoF will allow people to think of ways to “give back”, i.e., how to help from abroad or inside, how to transfer the know-how of successful experiences in the U.S., and how to create a channel of collaboration with organizations abroad.

Panelists: Nancy Amato (Texas A&M University), Tracy Hammond (Texas A&M University), and Jennifer Walter (Vassar College)

This BOF is a follow-on to popular BOFs on this topic at previous Hoppers. Participants will share experiences and advice with each other. One tenured faculty member will participate as a resource person. Topics will be determined by attendees; examples include tips for dealing with being the only woman in your department/group, how to handle aggressive colleagues or students, what can/can’t you ask a TA to do, etc.

Presenter: Fay Hellal (Yahoo!)

Women start their careers in business with the same level of intelligence, education, and commitment as men; yet they make up for barely 3% of the leadership in fortune 1000 companies.

This session poses few questions as to what really stand in the way of women to thrive in leadership. The session will also offer answers, based on various research, to stimulate the conversation. The session will also feature a live interview with guest leader Kakul Srivastave from Yahoo!

Panelists: Dilma Da Silva (IBM, TJ Watson Research Center), Nadia Anguiano-Wehde (IBM), Cecilia Aragon (University of Washington and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Gaby Aguilera (Google), Claris Castillo (IBM Research), Patty Lopez (Intel), Gabriel Silberman (CA Technologies), and Gilda Garreton (Oracle)

Speed mentoring is a networking exercise where people get advice in a series of short, one-on-one conversations. The lack of Latina mentors and role models is well known as one of the biggest challenges preventing the retention and increase of Latinas in the computing related fields. Thus we will apply the “speed mentoring” technique to create opportunities for Latinas in Computing to identify new possible mentors/protégés and get valuable immediate feedback.

Panelists: Youyou Yang (Simon Fraser University), Jenny Lee (Simon Fraser University), and Janice Regan (Simon Fraser University)

Discussion of the Simon Fraser University (Canada) and Zhejiang University (PRC) Dual Degree Program in Computing Science (DDP) as an example of successful educational collaboration across international borders. Panelists will outline how the program works and provide different views of the advantages, benefits and challenges of creating and participating in such a program. Views include students in the DDP and faculty that have participated in faculty exchanges.

Panelists: BJ Wishinsky (Anita Borg Institute Women in Technology), Karolina Buchner (Yahoo!), Zahra Ghofraniha (Google), and Karin Meyer (Intuit)

The objective of this session is to bring together leaders of women’s networks, or Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) in global technology companies. Key topics to be discussed include objectives and initiatives of these groups, presence across global offices, benefits to employees, challenges in founding, growing, and sustaining these groups, and lessons learned. Everyone interested in starting up, expanding, or re-energizing their group is encouraged to join the discussion!

Panelists: Virginia Smith (HP) and Glenna Mayo (Yahoo!)

What a great idea! Now you must convince a wide range of stakeholders (from managers to developers) that this will benefit the organization and is worth their investment. The panelists will present their real world experiences and strategies for effective collaboration with stakeholders to ensure the success of a great idea. Participants will also have a chance to discuss their own experiences in getting their great idea sponsored and implemented.

Please join us for a laboratory tour of the GVU Center at Georgia Institute of Technology. Over 100 research demonstrations by Georgia Tech faculty and students are part of this special event for Grace Hopper 2010. The GVU Center enables research in human centered computing (HCC) by fostering interdisciplinary collaborations that combine expertise in science, engineering, design, art, and the humanities. The mission of unlocking human potential through technical innovation guides research in creativity, emotion, wellness, independence, learning, persuasion and trust.

For more information click here.

Presenter: Barbara J Ericson (Georgia Institute of Technology)

Georgia Tech has been investigating activities that attract students, and especially girls, to computing since 2004. We have had success with PicoCrickets, Pleo robots, Scratch, and Alice. This workshop will allow each participant to have a hands-on experience with each of these tools. Materials will also be distributed that describe our outreach programs, results, and provide links to detailed descriptions of our outreach activities and summer camps.