Welcome from the ACM-W Chair Welcome to the December issue of ACM-W Connections. There’s quite a bit to read this month. I’ve collected together a number of announcements into one place. These include information from NCWIT, Codess, Microsoft about the Big Dream Movement, and a link to a video that Vint Cerf provided. We also have updates on ACM-W Europe, ACM-W Chapters, and Grace Hopper India, and an article on the importance to students of faculty mentoring. Two ACM-W announcements, both exciting in their own way: - ACM-W is seeking volunteers to form our new committee on professional chapters. There is lots of information at http://tiny.cc/oaxrqx, and a form where people can express interest. Please share this widely!
- ACM-W has been invited by Google to be their partner for a pilot project called IgniteCS. The idea is to foster mentoring of middle and high school students by college students. U.S.-based ACM-W student chapters can apply to be part of this project (there’s financial support!).
Read more at http://tiny.cc/oaxrqx Finally, as a follow-up to my comments in November about “The Imitation Game”, the new film about Alan Turing, I received a note from Kelly Gotlieb. For those who do not know Kelly, he is Professor Emeritus in Computer Science at the University of Toronto, and co-founded their computation centre in 1948. He has received many awards and accolades over the years, including being inducted as a Fellow of the ACM. Kelly wrote “You are absolutely right about Turing not being able to build that Manchester machine himself. I visited him in Manchester, April 1952, and talked with him on several occasions as he worked on that computer. It was built by a team in the University headed by Fred Williams. The machine had 10,000 vacuum tubes, and both the computer and air conditioner required full size rooms.” Thanks, Kelly, for sharing that, and for keeping up with ACM-W! Happy holidays, and best wishes for 2015. ~Valerie Barr, ACM-W Chair For instructions on how to unsubscribe from this service, please see below.
Articles of interest
Articles of Interest
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News From ACM-W Chapters
As we close the 2014 ACM-W year, we again emphasize our sisterhood that spans the globe. We welcome a new ACM-W Chapter in Ireland; a new ACM-W Chapters Committee member, Virginia Grande, who teaches at Uppsala University (Sweden) and helps coordinate European Women in Computing; and a new professional ACM-W Chapter in the United Kingdom. ACM-W will host a booth at the 2015 Richard Tapia Conference, February 18-21, 2015, in Boston, MA. The conference celebrates diversity in computing, so it links perfectly with ACM-W’s mission. Please talk with us at the booth and pick up an ACM-W Chapters ribbon for your badge. In 2015, we would love for more women around the world to join our chapters’ network! (Send inquiries to gct@depauw.edu.) Read a story about European Women in Computing: http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2014/7/176222-
european-women-in-computing/fulltext Read more about Tapia: http://tapiaconference.org/ For more news from ACM-W Europe and ACM-W India, see the December issue of ACM-W Connections. to the top
ACM-W Celebrations
Ontario Celebration of Women in Computing Celebrates a Milestone The Ontario Celebration of Women in Computing (ONCWiC 2014) held its 5th annual conference on October 24-25th, 2014. See details in the December issue of ACM-W Connections. to the top
Announcements
From NCWIT, the National Center for Women & Information Technology: Introducing EngageCSEdu, an online tool developed by the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) in partnership with Google: www.engage-csedu.org. EngageCSEdu encourages the development of more inclusive learning environments in introductory computer science (CS) courses by helping faculty to easily browse, contribute, and review materials that will engage all of your students. This dynamic collection offers thousands of projects, homework assignments, and other course materials that are searchable by computer science knowledge area, programming language, and more. All course materials are developed by faculty members nationwide and evaluated for quality by an interdisciplinary team of computer scientists, learning scientists, and diversity experts. Start exploring and contributing
today at www.engage-csedu.org, and become a part of diversifying the technology workforce. From Codess: Microsoft initiated Codess in March 2013 to build a community of female coders. We wanted to create a forum for women to network, mentor, and share their advice and experiences. Since the Codess launch, we have held 19 events in eight countries, bringing together technical women from all over the world. Codess aims to inspire women to achieve their professional goals and continue advancing within the technical field. We want to change the future of the computer science by increasing the number of women working at the leadership level. Learn more about Codess at http://www.codess.net and at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-business/11182833/How-She-Did-It-Girls-I-dropped-out-of-ComputerScience-so-you-dont-have-to.html - From Microsoft:
The Big Dream Movement connects organizations, academia, and resources to girls around the world to help them pursue a future in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields. The movement is anchored by Big Dream, a documentary film (underwritten by Microsoft) that follows the stories of seven young women who are breaking barriers and overcoming personal challenges to follow their passions in STEM fields. From small town Iowa to the bustling streets of the Middle East, Big Dream immerses viewers in a world designed by and for the next generation of girls. The Film launched last week at the Napa Valley Film Festival. Our hope is that this inspirational film will excite young women, their families, and friends to the possibilities inherent in science and technology. Starting in January organization can host a screening. Please register your screening request here and in early January we will send you details on how to download the film and a toolkit to help you organize your event with discussion questions and tools to share with the audience to help get more girls interested in computer science. - Would you like to contribute an article to the ACM-W Newsletter?
With a distribution list reaching thousands of ACM-W members, contributing to the newsletter is a wonderful opportunity to share ideas and information across a wide audience. Submit a proposal for an article /submit.
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