Welcome from the ACM-W Chair

Welcome to the December, 2015, issue of ACM-W Connections.  We’ve got lots of news from ACM-W Europe and  report from ACM-W India about the Grace Hopper India conference.  I hope you enjoy reading about all of these activities.

News from Networking Networking Women

We wanted to share this news from N2W (Networking Networking Women.

We are very excited to announce the inaugural list of "10 women in networking/communications that you should know”. Over 150 people around the world submitted nominations for this list, and many of these people submitted several names. These nominations created a very impressive list of approximately 140 women in the networking/communications fields. The women nominated amaze us and inspire us. It was quite hard to only choose 10 …  

The "10 women in networking/communications that you should know” list will be an annual list. For this 1st list, we decided to focus on the most senior women in our field, all of whom have had a major impact in networking and/or communications. We also wanted a list that represented our diversity, e.g., diversity in the area of networking/communications and, thus, chose the list accordingly.   For 2015, in alphabetical order (by first name), here are 10 women in networking/communications that you should know!      

• Andrea Goldsmith    
• Anja Feldmann         
• Deborah Estrin         
• Jennifer Rexford      
• Klara Nahrstedt       
• Lixia Zhang   
• Muriel Medard         
• Polina Bayvel            
• Radia Perlman          
• Sally Floyd 

Details on these amazing women, as well as quotes from one of the many people who nominated these women, are available at: http://sites.ieee.org/com-n2women/files/2015/12/Top10-20151.pdf

Where’s ACM-W This Month?

As I’m writing this, I’ve just left Oxford University which hosted the Ada Lovelace Symposium on December 9 & 10.  It was a wonderful event with a great mix of literary scholars, historians, mathematicians, and computer scientists.  The livestream is available at http://livestream.com/oxuni/lovelace and I absolutely recommend that you watch it.  As a computer scientist, I was humbled by the extent of research the scholars from the humanities disciplines have done.  They have faced a significant big data problem, reading letters and diaries from multiple people that spanned decades, drawing connections between them, using calendars and newspapers to confirm and clarify details.  This work is fascinating, and it was great fun to see a few of the original documents on display at Oxford’s Bodleian Library. 

We’re also very excited about the first Canada-wide ACM-W celebration, coming up later in January.  If you are interested in more information, head to http://www.can-cwic.ca.

Thanks for your interest in ACM-W, and thanks for supporting women in computing!

~Valerie Barr, ACM-W Chair

News From ACM-W Chapters

Barb Ericson at Georgia Tech,  ACM-W’s friend, started "Project Rise Up 4 CS" 4 years ago to help more African-American students pass the Advanced Placement (AP) Computer Science (CS) A exam. The number of African-Americans passing the exam in Georgia has been increasing since the project began. Last year Barb started "Sisters Rise Up 4 CS" to help more women pass the AP CS A exam. "Sisters Rise Up 4 CS" offers help sessions led by undergraduate students.  There are two types of help sessions:  twice-a-week one-hour webinars and once-a-month, three-hour in-person sessions at a local college or university.  The undergraduate students serve as near-peer role models to help increase the participants’ sense of belonging in computing.  The webinars are intended to encourage practice and address misconceptions.  The in-person help sessions allow students to feel that they belong at their local college or university in computer science.

Barb wants to expand "Sisters Rise Up 4 CS" to more colleges and universities.  The project provides a perfect ACM-W Chapters outreach project opportunity.  Barb created a free e-book to help both the undergraduate students lead the webinars as well as the high school students prepare for the Java-based AP exam.

News From ACM-W India

Report of GHC India 2015

 More than 2,000 women technologists convened in Bangalore for the sixth annual Grace Hopper Celebration India, the largest gathering of women in technology in the country. This year’s conference theme was #OurTimeToLead.

Following opening remarks from Telle Whitney, President and CEO of the Anita Borg Institute (ABI) and Geetha Kannan, Managing Director of ABI India, Kimberly Stevenson, Vice President and CIO at Intel delivered the day’s first keynote address. Her talk centered on the concept of the butterfly effect, which suggests that small actions can make a big difference, especially in the technology industry.

Kimberly highlighted the fact that women are the primary consumers — and increasingly, the creators — of today’s most innovative technologies. With this in mind, she underscored how important it is to continue the momentum that has attracted so many talented female technologists from India into the technology market.

The CXO panel touched upon Innovation, Inclusion, Internet @ India 2.0 – Where Are We Headed, moderated by Tata Sons CTO Gopichand Katragadda. The panelists included Rekha Menon, Chairman of Accenture India, Sandhya Vasudevan, Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer at Deutsche Bank Group in India, Dinesh Malkani, President of Cisco India and SAARC and Dr. Manish Gupta, Vice President of Xerox Corporation and Director of the Xerox Research Center in India.

The panelists discussed how the seemingly disparate issues of innovation, inclusion and the Internet come together to create India’s technology landscape today. One of the main takeaways from the panel discussion highlighted the importance of innovating for an educated, well-informed audience of Indian consumers. To succeed, the panelists agreed, companies both big and small must think about disruption.

On the second day the attendees dove into technical topics, covering issues like data science and machine learning, emerging technologies, innovations born in India and systems engineering. It was also the first day of the student career fair, and the final round of the Tech For Good Hackathon. Again, the sessions captured how India’s female technologist population can embrace the theme of #OurTimeToLead, learn from their peers and pass on their knowledge to the next generation.

The final day of the Grace Hopper Celebration India (GHCI), held in Bangalore, offered attendees a wide variety of sessions touching on topics ranging from early career advice, entrepreneurship, management and leadership skills, soft skills and how to get back to work in the booming Indian technology industry.

GHCI’s 2,000+ attendees could choose between panels discussing using LinkedIn to build your professional brand, mastering the art of the startup pitch, tackling the ever-present imposter syndrome and exploring the dichotomy that exists for female leaders.

The day concluded with the 2015 Women Entrepreneur Quest, a business plan contest designed to encourage, showcase and recognize tech startups founded and managed by female entrepreneurs.

ACM India sponsored around 40 members to GHCI 15. An ACM Student chapter meeting was organized which was also attended by the Professional members participating in the conference.  Many issues were discussed which included the benefits of opening a ACM-W chapter; the need and modalities of organizing conferences for women; encourage active participation from women both professional and student members. The Hour of Code initiative was also discussed.

News From ACM-W Europe

First FRIEND of ACM-WE: IE WIRE

ACM-W Europe is now partners with IE-WIRE, Informatics Europe’s Women in Informatics Research and Education Working Group. Going forward the two entities will endorse, promote and participate in each other’s events, and collaborate on projects related to women in computing. We are very excited about our new friends, and look forward to a long and fruitful partnership!

Edinburgh University Celebrates 10th Anniversary of “Hoppers” Women in Computing Group

On December 5th, the Edinburgh University “Hoppers” group held a celebration of its 10th anniversary. Established in September 2005 to provide a peer-support network for female students in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh, the group has managed to thrive despite the constantly changing constituency of members.  The group is run entirely by the students, for the students, and we believe that Edinburgh University Hoppers is one of the oldest student-run societies for women in computing.<

Over the years Hoppers has created a sense of community, particularly among the undergraduate women in Informatics, who represent approximately 17% of the total cohort. Most of the group’s events are focused on skill-development, and coding nights are always popular.  However, the ultimate goal is to cultivate an open community with the aim to provide a supportive and inclusive society where people are comfortable and build both technical and networking skills to thrive in the tech environment.   Moreover each year the society elects a small committee of “presidents” who develop further skills in fundraising, event planning and financial management.

One speaker stressed the impact that the existence of strong role models can have in encouraging more women into the discipline, and exhorted all present to be conscious of their own potential to be role models for the next generation.  The final talk at the event was given by Kate Ho, who as an undergraduate in 2005 was one of the instigators for the formation of the Hoppers group.  With a portfolio career that has included completing a PhD, starting a successful start-up, and now working on the digital interface to the Scottish Government, Kate has a broad perspective.  She spoke about the importance of community and networking, from a technical point of view, and more broadly.  She pointed out that we are fortunate in Edinburgh to have a thriving tech community with many tech meetups on offer every week, but spoke with understanding about how intimidating these can be particularly for novice, female programmers.  Nevertheless she encouraged everyone to get involved in multiple communities, including Hoppers, to expand their network and their skills.

Despite the wild and windy weather, approximately 50 participates joined the celebrations on 5th December.  The event brought together old and new Hoppers, undergrads, postgrads, staff and alumnae, including presidents spanning the past 10 years.   Role models have always played an important part in Hoppers activities, and this event was no exception.  The afternoon started with a series of short talks from researchers and alumnae. Guest speaker Katia Shutova–a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Cambridge–discussed her research in natural language processing, in particular computational modelling of metaphor, giving interesting insights into how we can be subliminally influenced by the metaphors that politicians use, and describing a system to automatically paraphrase into more neutral language.  Jane Hillston, from the School of Informatics, discussed her path to computer science and the female role models who supported and influenced her.

Further activities in the afternoon included a panel session, allowing the audience to pose questions to women at different stages of their careers, both within industry and academia.  Topics raised included how to widen the pipeline to get more female students into the discipline, facilitating transfer into the community for women who perhaps initially completed a degree in a different discipline and how to overcome the “guild” mentality, which can be particularly off-putting for women who are lacking confidence in their technical abilities.

The speed networking session that followed quickly overcame the students’ initial shyness and the room was soon buzzing with lively conversation, further facilitated by drinks and canapés.  As a momento of the occasion, participants were encouraged to visit our photo booth where they could have their picture taken with a life-sized iconic picture of Grace Hopper.

Like all Hopper events, this was run by the students, for the students, with minimal support from the staff in the School of Informatics.   Nevertheless a few of the female staff came along to share in the fun and it was a pleasure to see the joy and excitement that these young women have in their chosen field of study.  The value that they derive from the group is evident from the fact that it has kept going for over ten years.  Given the enthusiasm and passion of the current female cohort, it will keep going for at least another 10 years.
 

Announcements

• Save the Date: womENcourage 2016 Celebration of Women in Computing, September 12-13, 2016

  Ten months from now we will be celebrating at Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria. womENcourage 2016 dates have been announced. On September 12 a lively Career Fair will kick off the celebration, on the 13th we will have keynotes, panels, and a poster session. More information will be forthcoming after the first of the year.

• Apply to Attend the Heidelberg Forum
  The Heidelberg Laureate Forum was created by the Klaus Tschira Foundation, the Heidelberg Institute of Theoretical Studies, ACM, and Letters to provide an opportunity for young researchers to spend a week with winners of the Turing Award, Abel Prize, Nevanlinna Prize, and Fields Medal. To date three forums have been held (2013, 2014, and 2015), and all have been viewed as a major success by the 40 laureates and 200 young researchers in computer science and mathematics who attended each forum. Details can be found at http://www.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org/.

  The Fourth Heidelberg Laureate Forum will be held September 18-23, 2016.
  To be considered for the Heidelberg Forum, young researchers can either apply directly to the International Mathematical Union, and the Norwegian Academy of Science (www.application.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org) or be nominated by a colleague (or professor, mentor or manager) who can attest to the quality of their work. Nominations will likely carry a bit more weight within the selection process and can be made at https://application.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org/intern/reg_nom_registration_for.php but require ACM-specific credentials. If you or a colleague would like to make a nomination, the ACM “Organization Number” is ACM72967. Applications and nominations must be completed by February 3, 2016.

• Research Data Science Summer School, Trieste Italy August 1-12, 2016
  Apply now to attend the Research Data Science Summer School in Trieste, Italy, August 1-12, 2016 apply by April 18 (CODATA-RDA) Students will learn software carpentry, data carpentry, digital curation and stewardship skills, and more. Apply here.
• 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.

Welcome from the ACM-W Chair

Welcome to the November, 2015, issue of ACM-W Connections.  We’ve got lots of news from ACM-W Europe, ACM-W India, the Scholarships Ctte., and the Chapters Ctte.   I hope you enjoy reading about all of these activities.

We also have a contributed article this month from Beth Quinn at NCWIT.  Beth has written about EngageCSEdu, the curated collection of peer reviewed materials for the CS1 and CS2 courses.  If you are a college or university CS faculty member, or are at all concerned with how to better engage and retain a diverse population of CS students, you definitely should read Beth’s piece!  While contributors to the repository are largely US-based, the materials can certainly be used all over.

Where’s ACM-W This Month?

As I’m writing this, people are on their way to SEWiC, the Southeast Celebration of Women in Computing (Atlanta, November 13-15).

I’m very excited about the upcoming Ada Lovelace Symposium, December 9 & 10 in Oxford, England.  I will be representing ACM-W and ACM, along with Vicki Hanson (ACM Vice President), Alex Wolf (ACM President), and Moshe Vardi (Editor-in-Chief of CACM).  Look for a report in December’s ACM-W Connections.

Interested in volunteering with ACM-W?

We are looking for people interested in joining some of our committees.   If you want to work with ACM-W, keep an eye on this section each month to see if there’s a role that interests you.  Contact me if you are ready to volunteer!  Right now we are looking for the following:

Celebrations Committee:    

• Administrative communications coordinator – this is a two-year position on the Celebrations Committee with two primary responsibilities:
• Maintain the Celebrations web pages to ensure that the information and resources contained within are current and complete;
• Generate reports from the data collected on Celebrations events over the course of the year, for use by members of the ACM-W Council.  

Communications Committee:

• Interested in starting a new newsletter feature?  We would like to introduce a People of ACM-W section, featuring interviews with ACM-W volunteers.  Work on developing interview questions, carrying out interviews, and prepare material for publication.

Thanks for your interest in ACM-W, and thanks for supporting women in computing!

~Valerie Barr, ACM-W Chair

Contributed Article

How Do You Engage and Retain Diverse Students? EngageCSEdu Can Help

by Beth Quinn (NCWIT)

News From ACM-W Scholarships

The ACM-W Scholarship for Attendance of Research Conferences program provides support for women students in Computer Science and related programs who wish to attend research conferences. The student does not have to present a paper at the conference to be eligible. Applications are evaluated 6 times each year, in order to distribute awards across a range of conferences, with 2-6 awards usually given for each group of applications. The 2015-2016 ACM-W Scholarships are made possible by the generous support of Google, Microsoft  and Oracle.

The scholarships expose students to prominent researchers in their field, introduce students to new research, and excite them about doing research themselves. We then ask students to share with us some of their thoughts on the conference they attend and some pictures.  

We just had the applications in for the last round of submissions of 2015 and we’re happy to report that we were able to support the following (eight!)  applicants: Selene Chew, Franka Veltman, Abimbola Afolayan, Rekha R Pai, Oluwatosin Aderinola, Ankita Raturi, Zongyi Xu, Otasowie Iyar. We hope you will have great conferences and learn much people!

The next application deadline is December 15 for conferences taking place in February and March 2016. For more information and to apply visit women.acm.org/scholarship.  If you have any questions, contact scholarship committee chair Prof. Adriana Compagnoni.

News From ACM-W Chapters

Susan Rodger, ACM-W’s wonderful friend at Duke and CRA-W, launched a new Wikipedia project, "Notable Women in Computing".  She also wrote a "how-to" guide with complete directions for creating a Wikipedia biography page and setting up a Wikipedia account, along with a database of Notable Women in Computing.  Finally, there is a spreadsheet that lists each woman and the status of her Wikipedia page.   

Again, everything you need to know (including advice about selecting a woman and collecting information for a Wikipedia page) is a click away at http://www.cs.duke.edu/csed/wikipedia/

Adding a page or more is a perfect project for any of our ACM-W Chapters.  Leave a legacy from your chapter by authoring a page about your Notable Woman in Computing, a page that will be read by people all over the world.

News From ACM-W India

Report of Regional Celebration of Women in Computing, East and North-East” 2 – 3 November 2015 at IIT Guwahati

ACM-W India “Regional Celebration of Women in Computing, East and North-East"  was organized and hosted by Department of CSE, IIT Guwahati. This event provided a forum for the lady researchers and faculty members in the region to showcase their work in the form of posters and also get exposure to recent trends in industry and academia. The event had talks delivered by eminent lady academicians, researchers and industry leaders. During the two day event participants got to interact with eminent
personalities and had the opportunity to know what is happening in academic and how the research outcomes can finally get converted to industry deliverables. The inaugural function was attended by:

• Prof. Gautam Biswas, Director, IIT Guwahati
• Prof. Ravi Mokashi Punekar, Dean Alumni Affairs and External Relations, IIT Guwahati
• Dr. Valentina Salapura, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
• Ms Kumud Srinivasan, President Intel India
• Prof. Susmita Sur-Kolay, ISI Kolkata
• Prof. Dipanwita Roy Choudhuri, IIT Kharagpur
• Prof. Sheila Anand, ACM-W India Chair
• Prof. Diganta Goswami, Head, Dept. of CSE, IIT Guwahati

The key organisers of the event, Dr. Hemangee K. Kapoor and Prof. Sukumar Nandi gave an overview of the conference and Prof. Sheila Anand welcomed the guests and delegates to the ACM-W Celebration.  

Ms. Kumud Srinivasan spoke about the “Accelerating Transformation in Today’s Digital World”. She compared industry trends in India and abroad. She motivated the participant ladies by advising them to ask the question “Why?” first and that the “How” and “What” will follow. Dr. Valentina gave an excellent talk on various cloud computing methodologies and virtualisation techniques.

Prof. Susmita gave a talk on the challenges in synthesizing quantum computers. The other talks were in the area of authenticated encryption, Big-Text and Big-Data, Use of thermography to detect breast cancer, Bio-computing and on the data and cloud setup at IISc SERC. Rowena Robinson, Professor of sociology gave an energetic talk on “Girls who play with fire? Women in computing and on the Internet in India”. There was good interaction from the participants and heated discussions on social and family restrictions faced by women in technology. There was also debate on whether it was required to have reservation for girls in higher education institutions.

A panel discussion was held on the theme “On Choosing Career Path: Academics, IT, Research and Entrepreneurship”. The panelists were Dr. Lakshmi, IISc Bangalore, Dr. Valentina, Arati Dixit, University of Pune, Prof. Susmita and Prof. Dipanwita. The discussion, moderated by Arati, focused on the panelists’ careers, how they achieved their goals and the challenges they faced in their respective fields.

Another big attraction for the participants was the poster session. The posters were evaluated by faculty from the department of CSE, IITG and three best posters were recognised by giving a certificate and cash prize. Free ACM membership was offered to all the registered student

The event had 77 registered participants out of which 57 lady participants were from around 12 universities from the North-East. There were 25 poster submissions. The organisers are very thankful to the generous support given by the sponsors: Google, Xerox research India and Tata Consultancy Services.

News From ACM-W Europe

ACM-W UK seeks to Inspire

The ACM-W UK Professional chapter held their first of a series of events called INSPIRE 2015 at Imperial College London in October 2015. Having over 60 participants (both ACM members and non-members) from academia and industry, the event got a good mix of multiple disciplines, and people from work and cultural backgrounds. Following the involvement of the chapter in the conference series of WomENcourage and Grace Hopper, the day was jam packed with great speakers from different backgrounds of academia and industry, discussing their challenges in research and motivation when it comes to women encouragement in computing.

The day involved a number of speakers included Prof Alex Wolf, the president of ACM, based in Imperial College, who discussed the challenges ACM has faced over the years and how we can motivate more members to join ACM. He highlighted how being part of a big community can help researchers find a home to relate to when they are publishing or trying to find like-minded individuals. Wolf was followed by the current president of ACM-W UK, Dr Mariam Kiran, who discussed the missions of the chapter and how they plan to provide support for all (not just women) from all walks of life such as industry or academia, at different stages of their careers. The chapter aims to become a first port of call for advice, mentoring and find a forum to discuss challenges and solutions in progressing further in their careers or finding the right balance in work and family. The chapter aims to partner with established groups such as BCS and Systers to accomplish these goals.

As the day progressed, there were various talks, particularly a very interesting talk by Bev Bachmayer from Intel, who discussed how her experience of working with Internet of Things and teaching girls in Germany and Africa has allowed her to become a lead in the IoT sector at Intel. Prof Daniela Romano discussed how she has balanced her career and family life, and becoming a successful professor in virtual reality and gaming. The ACM-W Europe conference chair Virginia Grande discussed some of her findings on why and how people volunteer for promoting ACM-like activities and what are the individual gains everyone gets. Further talks included Professor Natasa Milic Frayling, who discussed how everyone needs to rethink their career paths relating to their own situations and settings. Finally, the day ended with a talk by Professor Liz Bacon who discussed statistics on how many women are actually being lost through the leaky pipeline of engineering and the unconscious bias females face in the real world. All of the talks discussed some common themes that showed what the UK and ACM-W chapter could work towards.

What do you call yourself – Names? A few participants mentioned how they have changed their names or used a shortened version, to allow to be more accepted in the community. By making the name sound a bit more like a bloke, these have noticed a considerable progress when applying for jobs and interviews. This was mirrored in the findings of the Harvard study where male and female candidates with similar capabilities for the same job had more successes of the male participant getting called in for an interview.
Culture and diversity UK is an extremely diverse and budding society, but there seems to be a disconnect between research groups based on culture and society integration. Further measures need to be taken to help integrate multiple diversity in the computing fields, not only focusing on women but on everyone involved, at all stages of their career.
Do what you like. A number of inspiring speakers repeated the theme and described how you will still be willing to do more because you would be enjoying your work. Computer Science allows people to innovate and introduce new ideas that revolutionize the way we live living in a technology led era. So why would you drift away?
Working on these themes and taking them forward, the day was a true Inspire event for ACM-W UK and there are a number of themes to tackle over the next year. The event will be held on a yearly basis moving across multiple universities and industries across the UK. Lastly, congratulations to the PhD students selected for two best posters of the event:

Second place: Anitta Patience Namanya, University of Bradford. “A Framework for Automated Hybrid Signature Generation for Portable Executable Malware Detection

First place: Weam Binjumah, University of Hertfordshire. “Reducing Bit Error Rate of Optical Data Transmission with Neighboring Symbol Information Using a Linear Support Vector Machine

Further details of the event: http://acmukwomen.acm.org/index.php/inspire-2015

Announcements

• ADA Lovelace 200th Birthday Symposium

  10 December 2015 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Ada Lovelace, chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage’s early mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine.  The Symposium is aimed at a broad audience of those interested in the history and culture of mathematics and computer science, presenting new discoveries from the Oxford archives, current scholarship on Lovelace’s life and work, and linking her ideas to contemporary thinking about mathematics, computing and artificial intelligence.

• the Heidelberg Forum

  The Heidelberg Laureate Forum was created by the Klaus Tschira Foundation, the Heidelberg Institute of Theoretical Studies, ACM, and Letters to provide an opportunity for young researchers to spend a week with winners of the Turing Award, Abel Prize, Nevanlinna Prize, and Fields Medal.  To date, three forums have been held (2013, 2014, and 2015), and all have been viewed as a major success by the 40 laureates and 200 young researchers in computer science and mathematics who attended each forum.  Details can be found at http://www.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org/.

  The Fourth Heidelberg Laureate Forum will be held September 18-23, 2016.  
  To be considered for the Heidelberg Forum, young researchers can either apply directly to the International Mathematical Union or the Norwegian Academy of Science www.application.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org, or be nominated by a colleague (or professor, mentor or manager) who can attest to the quality of their work.  Nominations will likely carry a bit more weight within the selection process and can be made at https://application.heidelberg-laureate-forum.org/intern/reg_nom_registration_for.php  but require ACM-specific credentials.  If you or a colleague would like to make a nomination, the ACM “Organization Number” is ACM72967.  Applications and nominations must be completed by February 3, 2016.

• 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.

Welcome from the ACM-W Chair

Welcome to the October, 2015, issue of ACM-W Connections.  There’s a lot going on in ACM-W’s world.

The big news is that the ACM Executive Committee has approved a new charter for ACM-W!  I’ll highlight just a few of the changes.

1. There is no longer an ACM-W Executive Committee.
2. The ACM-W Council now consists of the chair, vice chair, ACM-W India chair, ACM-W Europe chair, and the committee chairs.  This gives us a larger, but not unwieldy, decision making body.  More importantly, it brings to the table everyone who is leading the different activities of the organization.  Everyone else who is involved with ACM-W will either be a member of a committee or will be on an ad hoc project and will report directly to the chair or vice chair.
3. We will begin to adhere to the ACM policy on limited terms of office — a limit of two consecutive two-year terms in the same position.  This means that we will continually bring new people into ACM-W.  We are always on the lookout for new volunteers and hope that many of you reading this will be interested in stepping up to join our efforts.  Send me an email and let me know what you want to work on!

I want to thank all of those who have been working hard for ACM-W in the last few years.  Their work has led to growth of all of our programs, and we see increased recognition of ACM-W among people in computing, not just among women in computing.

Where’s ACM-W This Month?

While you are reading this, many of us are at the Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) in Houston, TX.  Stop by the ACM-W booth (#S13) and pick up one of our new Ada Lovelace tech tattoos for your laptop!

Overlapping with GHC is MinkWiC, the Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas Celebration of Women in Computing, October 15-16. 

October 28th will be Inspire 2015, organized by the ACM-W UK chapter.

Finally, November 13-15 is SEWiC, the Southeast Celebration of Women in Computing.

~Valerie Barr, ACM-W Chair

News From ACM-W Celebrations

– letter from Wendy Powley, ACM-W Celebration Chair

I would like to thank Valerie and Jodi for their warm welcome in the August newsletter.   I am delighted to be taking on the role as Chair of the Celebrations project, an initiative that I am very passionate and excited about.

In 2010, my friend Kelly Lyons informed me of the ACM-W’s initiative to launch Celebration events to provide young women with the inspiration and experience that comes from attending a conference filled with enthusiastic, like-minded women.    She e-introduced me to Gloria Childress Townsend and Elaine Weyuker who were heading up the project at the time.   I downloaded Gloria’s One Hundred One Ideas for Small Regional Celebrations of Women in Computing guide, gathered some keen students from our School, and got to work on the first Ontario Celebration of Women in Computing (ONCWIC) event.   This was completely out of character for me.  It was risky and scary.  Where would the funding come from?   I had no industry connections.  I had never been involved in large-scale fund-raising.  I worried that no one would come to the conference.   The one thing that kept me focused and determined was Gloria’s comment “Organizing a Celebration event was the single most rewarding thing I have done in my life”.

The first event was a huge success and since then ONCWIC has been organized by four different universities across Ontario.  This year we are extremely excited to be launching the first Canadian Celebration of Women in Computing (CAN-CWiC).   This conference represents a merging of three Canadian Celebrations: the Ontario Celebration of Women in Computing, the Pacific Northwest Celebration of Women in Computing, and the Atlantic Canada Celebration of Women in Computing.

There are many Celebrations planned for the 2015/2016 year with at least a dozen events planned in areas across the US, two events in India, and Celebrations in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Europe.  Check out the ACM-W Celebrations page to find an event near you!

If you are interested in organizing an event, I would be happy to talk with you about what it entails.  Seed funding is available for all events from ACM-W and Microsoft Research, and many supports are in place to assist with planning and execution of events. 

Perhaps you are not quite ready to organize your own Celebration yet, but you would like to help out in some way with the Celebrations project?  We are looking for new members to join the Celebrations committee.   The workload is light, but your help would really be appreciated.

I can be reached by email at wendy@cs.queensu.ca.  I look forward to getting to know all the Celebration organizers over the coming months and working with you to make your Celebration a huge success.  And, for the record, I agree with Gloria that organizing a Celebration was the single most rewarding thing I have done in my life.  Try it!  When you see the smiles on the faces of your young attendees, you are sure to agree with us.

News From ACM-W Scholarships

The ACM-W Scholarship for Attendance of Research Conferences program provides support for women students in Computer Science and related programs who wish to attend research conferences. The student does not have to present a paper at the conference to be eligible. Applications are evaluated in 6 occasions each year, in order to distribute awards across a range of conferences, with 1-6 awards given for each group of applications. The 2014-2015 ACM-W Scholarships are made possible due to the generous support of Google, Microsoft  and Oracle.

The scholarships expose students to prominent researchers in their field, introduce students to new research, and excite them about doing research themselves. We ask students to share with us some of their thoughts on the conference they attended and we never cease to find truly inspiring stories. Here are some recent examples.

Most recently, in September 2015 we had another round of awards and we are pleased to congratulate  Katrin Krieger (Otto-von-Guericke-Universitaet, Germany), Susana Gomez Burgos (University of Colorado Boulder, USA),  Arooba Javed (Wayne State University, USA), Megan K. Hofmann (Colorado State University,), Jialing Zhang (University of Massachusetts Lowell, MA, USA) and  Lisa KOPF (Michigan State University, USA) for their new awards.  We are hoping for some more exciting descriptions and photos.

The next application deadline is December 15 for conferences taking place in February and March 2016. For more information and to apply visit women.acm.org/scholarship.  If you have any questions, contact scholarship committee chair Prof. Adriana Compagnoni.

News From ACM-W Chapters

Create and Expand ACM-W Groups on Campus: Call for Proposals (Deadline, 10/30/2015)

Applications for the new NCWIT Student Seed Fund (now sponsored by Google.org) will open soon! Any existing ACM-W student chapter or women in computing (WIC) group interested in becoming affiliated with ACM-W is eligible to apply.

This year, grants will be awarded in the following categories:

• Trailblazer Grant (up to $15,000): Funding at this level is for well-developed groups with a history of institutional support that are interested in institution-wide projects such as funding large-scale events or course development.
• Amplification Grant (up to $5,000): Funding at this level is intended for existing groups interested in expanding their impact through existing and new programs on their campus and in their geographic region.
• Start-Up Funding (up to $3,000): Students looking to start a new ACM-W chapter on campus can apply for funds to help launch their group.

The application deadline is October 30, 2015. Winners will be notified by January 2016. In order to be eligible, the host institution must be an NCWIT non-profit Academic Alliance Member within the United States.

To become a member, simply submit the Academic Alliance Membership Form here for Student Seed Fund and here for Academic Alliance Membership.

News From ACM-W India

Report of All India celebration of Women in Computing

All India celebration of women in computing was organized by AESICS, ACM-Women Chapter of Ahmedabad University in association with ACM Ahmedabad during 1st and 3rd October, 2015 under the theme “Entrepreneurship and Career Development in Computer Science and Information Technology”.

The inaugural ceremony started with prayer and e-lighting a lamp. Ms. Heena Timani, Vice Chairman, ACM Ahmedabad welcome and introduced all guests to the audience.

During ceremonial address, Dr. Arati Dixit, Member, ACM-W India Executive Council, briefed about Association of Computing Machinery as largest computing education society worldwide that strives unconditionally to raise the bar of students by helping them in terms of career resources, mentoring, workshops, conferences and publications She elucidated the objective of AICWIC’15 to support, motivate and inspire women researchers in India by providing them a platform where they can candidly interact with others and hence explained the importance of ACM-W Chapter. She talked about the facilities given by ACM and also discussed about the awards given by ACM.

The chief guest for the inaugural function Ms. Bhagyesh Soneji, Chairperson –Western Region ASSOCHAM (Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industries), threw a light on e-commerce business. She emphasized creativity and higher success ratio at younger age.

The Keynote addresses were conversed by Ms. Shweta Chawla and Mrs. Smriti Dagur. Ms. Shweta Chawla, an entrepreneur, Head and Chief Investigator at SC Cyber Solutions, Forensic Investigations Pune, shared her experiences at the SC Cyber Solutions. She encouraged students, especially girls to join the field of Forensic Investigations as an interesting field with ample of opportunities. She demonstrated cloning of data using a tool that attracted the audience. The other keynote speaker Mrs. Smriti Dagur, President, Institution of Electronics & Telecommunications Engineers (IETE) delivered a talk which motivated students to pursue higher studies. She highlighted on smart cities and village with powering inspiration.

The session continued with Panel Discussion on theme “On choosing Career Path: Academics, IT, Research and Entrepreneurship”. The Expert Panelists were Mrs. Vandana Raj, Director, Vama Communications, Mrs. Maria Choudhary, Chief Engineer, Oracle Systems, Pune and Ms. Sweta Chawla. The Panel Discussion was moderated by Dr. Arati M. Dixit on their career, goal and challenges in respective industry, career opportunities for IT student freshers in respective field of panelist.

As a part of Celebration on 3rd October the participant presented Work-in-progress research poster followed by Q & A by expert. The Valedictory session started with an address on Women in Computing by Dr. Bhusan Trivedi, Sr. Member, ACM Ahmedabad. It was followed with Award ceremony and Certificate distribution. The trophies and winning certificates were awarded to students for holding first and second rank in Programming Contest and IT Quiz respectively organized on 1st October as a part of AICWIC’15. It was also awarded to participants of IT Quiz, Programming Contest and participants of Work-in-progress research poster. More than 300 students and professionals. Concluding Remark was given by Dr Nilesh Modi, Chairman, ACM Ahmedabad. Dr Kuntal Patel, Membership Chair, proposed vote of thanks. Celebration was successfully completed under the encouraging support and guidance of Prof. Bipin Mehta, Director, School of Computer Studies, Ahmedabad University and Mr. Chandrashekhar Sahasrabudhe, Persistent System Ltd and Dr. Sheila Anand, ACM-W Chair India.

News From ACM-W Europe

womENcourage 2015 Celebration of Women in Computing

It’s confirmed!  Women Love Tech!  And the participants of ACM-W Europe womENcourage Celebration of Women in Computing deemed that the Celebration was a huge success!   Over 200 participants from 28 countries attended in at an impressive venue, they participated in keynote addresses, panel discussions, technical paper sessions, workshops, … See the photos, view the recorded sessions.

Google, Inria, Oracle, Bloomberg, Cisco, Facebook, IAR, Intel, Informatics Europe, Microsoft Research, and FreeBSD supported the celebration, allowing us to provide 55 students with travel scholarships. 

You can:

1. Look at the summary here
2. streamvideos of sessions you missed;
3. read some of our accepted papers;
4. or peruse the conference photo gallery.

Additionally see below articles (article1 and article2) and blogs from Sept 2015.

News of womENcourage 2016 3rd Celebration of Women in Computing is coming soon.  Stay Tuned.

WOMEN in HPC Blog

Two years ago, the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre (EPCC) set up the Women in High Performance Computing to address the gender imbalance in High Performance Computing (HPC).  Women in HPC is a network that supports collaboration and networking by bringing together female HPC scientists, researchers, developers, users and technicians from across Europe. Read more here.

Announcements

• ADA Lovelace 200th Birthday Symposium
  Join in Oxford to celebrate Ada Lovelace’s 200th birthday.
  10 December 2015 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Ada Lovelace, chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage’s early mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine.  The Symposium is aimed at a broad audience of those interested in the history and culture of mathematics and computer science, presenting new discoveries for the Oxford archives, current scholarship on Lovelace’s life and work, and linking her ideas to contemporary thinking about mathematics, computing and artificial intelligence.
  Click here for more details about the symposium and registration information.

• ACM-W UK Workshop at Imperial College London on Wednesday 28th October 2015
  ACM-W UK and the Computing Department at Imperial College London will be presenting the inaugural ACM-W UK Celebration Workshop on Wednesday, 28 October 2015 at Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus. Registration is open!   This event is sponsored by ACM-W, Department of Computing-Imperial College London, Microsoft Research, and Imperial WSET society.

• 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.

Welcome from the ACM-W Chair

Welcome to the September, 2015, issue of ACM-W Connections.  Before we get to news on ACM-W activities, I want to thank those companies that are supporting us during the 2015-2016 year.  Google continues to support the scholarship program, and also supports the development of new ACM-W Chapters through their funding of the project we are launching with NCWIT.  Microsoft Research (MSR) continues to support our Celebrations of Women in Computing, and has given us additional funding this year for events specifically for women at community colleges.  MSR has also contributed funds to the scholarship program, specifically so that we can encourage more early PhD students.  Finally, Oracle has given us funds for the scholarship program that we will be dividing over the 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 fiscal years.  Thanks to these companies, and to the people within them who work with me each year to secure these funds!

There’s quite a bit of news as we head into another exciting year of ACM-W activities.  In this newsletter you’ll find a lot of information from ACM-W Europe as they prepare for the upcoming womENcourage event.  There is also information about the Ada Lovelace Symposium, coming up in December at Oxford University.  And check the announcement from ACM-W chapters – there’s an opportunity to apply for funding for your chapter to help engage students at other schools!

One of our Scholarship recipients, Chao Charity Mbogo, University of Cape Town, passed her PhD defense and will be graduating in December.  She very kindly included ACM-W on the thank you message she sent out to “all who encouraged and supported me along the way”. Congratulations Chao, we’re thrilled that we were part of your journey.

You may recall that ACM-W was supporting the TechKobwa summer program for girls in Rwanda.  They had 60 girls and 10 teachers this summer, and there’s lots of information at http://www.egr.msu.edu/techkobwa/ and a blog at http://rwandancampforgirlsinit.blogspot.com/

We have so much going on these days, I think we need a new monthly feature, so here’s the first edition of…..

Where’s ACM-W This Month?

We are looking forward to womENcourage, in Uppsala, Sweden, running September 24-26.  Next is the ACM-W India Celebration of Women in Computing (AICWiC 2015) at Ahmedabad, Gujarat on October 3.  Many of us will be the Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) in Houston, TX, October 14-17.  Overlapping with GHC is MinkWiC, the Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas Celebration of Women in Computing, October 15-16. 

If you are attending Grace Hopper, stop by the ACM-W booth (#S13) and pick up one of our new Ada Lovelace tech tattoos for your laptop!

~Valerie Barr, ACM-W Chair

Special Tribute: Celebrating the 200th birthday of Ada Lovelace

In 2015 the University of Oxford will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of computer visionary Ada Lovelace.  The centrepiece of the celebrations will be a display at the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Library (13 October – 18 December 2015) and a Symposium (9 and 10 December 2015), presenting Lovelace’s life and work, and contemporary thinking on computing and artificial intelligence.

Ada, Countess of Lovelace (1815–1852), is best known for a remarkable article about Charles Babbage’s unbuilt computer, the Analytical Engine. This presented the first documented computer program, to calculate the Bernoulli numbers, and explained the ideas underlying Babbage’s  machine – and every one of the billions of computers and computer programs in use today. Going beyond Babbage’s ideas of computers as manipulating numbers, Lovelace also wrote about their creative possibilities and limits: her contribution was highlighted in one of Alan Turing’s most famous papers ‘Can a machine think?’ Lovelace had wide scientific and intellectual interests and studied with scientist Mary Somerville, and with Augustus De Morgan, a leading mathematician and pioneer in logic and algebra.

The display, in the Bodleian’s new Weston Library, will offer a chance to see Lovelace’s correspondence with Babbage, De Morgan, Somerville and others, and her childhood exercises and  mathematical notes.  The Symposium, on 9th and 10th December 2015, is aimed at a broad audience interested in the history and culture of mathematics and computer science, presenting current scholarship on Lovelace’s life and work, and linking her ideas to contemporary thinking about computing, artificial intelligence and the brain. Confirmed speakers so far include Lovelace’s direct descendant the Earl of Lytton, Lovelace biographer Betty Toole, computer historian Doron Swade, historian Richard Holmes, computer scientist Moshe Vardi, graphic novelist Sydney Padua, ACM Vice President Vicki Hanson, and ACM-W Chair Valerie Barr. Other activities will include a workshop for early career researchers, a “Music and Machines” event, and a dinner in Balliol College on 9th December, the eve of Lovelace’s 200th birthday.

Oxford’s celebration is led by the Bodleian Libraries and the University of Oxford’s Department of Computer Science, working with colleagues in the Mathematics Institute, Oxford e-Research Centre, Balliol College, Somerville College, the Department of English and TORCH. External sponsors include ACM, AdaCore, BCS, BCSwomen, Clay Mathematics Institute, Google, Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, and the London Mathematical Society. 

Oxford has a remarkable history of programming research, with two winners of the ACM A M Turing Award, the Nobel Prize for Computer Science, and the unique breadth and depth of Oxford’s expertise brings a variety of perspectives to understanding Lovelace and the remarkable intellectual community around her, whose ideas underpin modern computing.

For more information or to register see http://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/adalovelace/

News From ACM-W Chapters

ACM-W is accepting applications for funding ($300 maximum award) that will support existing ACM-W Chapters that wish to hold joint events with schools that do not yet have ACM-W Chapters. The event can be held at any of the participant schools’ campuses. Our Networking Project on-line application can be located at /chapter.  Winning applicants will receive checks after posting a short notice about the successful networking event to our Facebook group. The next deadline is:  October 15, for December – February events.

News From ACM-W Europe

15 days till womENcourage 2015!   Check out the schedule!  Join the Hackathon and the Career Fair!

The overview of the schedule for womENcourage 2015 is posted.  The schedule is interactive, clicking on the title of a session takes you to more details
Career Fair

Let our supporters know that you are interested in talking with them at the Career Fair on 24 September.  When registering for womENcourage 2015, you have the opportunity to add your name to the CV database.  This database is being collected to allow you to inform the supporters in advance that you will be attending the Career Fair.  Our supporters – Inria, Google, Oracle, Bloomberg, Cisco, Facebook, Microsoft Research, Informatics Europe, Intel, and FreeBSD – are very interested in meeting with you and talking with you.  Let them know you are interested in talking with them!  Sign up today.

Build something to help your local community at womENcourage 2015 Hackathon.  Win prizes!  Have fun!

Make something that will improve the world for someone less fortunate than you.  ACM-W Europe and Codess Hackathon sponsored by Intel® and Microsoft will be held in Uppsala, Sweden on September 24th 2015, in conjunction with womENcourage 2015 Celebration of Women in Computing. The challenge is to build innovative and exciting projects which improve the day to day lives of people using the Intel® Edison Development Board and the Intel IOT DevKit.  Your resulting project could be anything that will help humanity.

All you need to bring for the hackathon is your laptop. We will provide the computing supplies, food and drinks.

Announcements

• WiSCI 2015 STEAM Camp
  Check out the blog about this international camp encouraging young women to study STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics).
• 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.

Welcome from the ACM-W Chair

Welcome to the August, 2015, issue of ACM-W Connections.  As promised last month, I want to begin reporting on some of the changes and initiatives that we discussed at the Council meeting.   I am very excited that we are making some changes to the structure of ACM-W.   As our programs have expanded, the job of being ACM-W Chair has also grown.  It is with delight (and relief!) that I can announce that we have created a Vice Chair position and Jodi Tims (Baldwin Wallace University) will take on that role.  Jodi’s name is likely familiar to many of you as she has been leading the ACM-W Celebrations project for the last several years.  Jodi has been an incredible support to me since we began working together, and I look forward to continuing and expanding our efforts as she takes on her new role as Vice Chair. 

In her own report, Jodi will have more to say about Wendy Powley (Queens University) who will be taking over leadership of the Celebrations project.  I will just note here that Wendy has been a real stalwart champion of ACM-W and I am thrilled that she’s agreed to take on greater responsibility to continue the success and growth of ACM-W Celebrations.

In other news, we have recently decided to sponsor three activities by other groups.  This will be our third year as a Bronze Sponsor of WiCyS, the Women in Cybersecurity conference.  It is a fabulous event, attracting many students.  Please pass along information to women you know who are in or might be developing an interest in cybersecurity. 

Following on our decision in June to support the TechKobwa summer program for girls in Rwanda, we have made a modest contribution to Stawa University in Uganda.  The university is committed to improving science education among women and girls in East Africa and is developing a mobile classroom that will allow them to take computing education into rural areas.  The university is also planning to start an ACM-W chapter which will be our third in Africa. 

Finally, we will be a Silver Sponsor of LATINiTY, the Latin American Women in Technology Conference, taking place in Santiago, Chile, in November. 

In this issue of ACM-W Connections there is news from Chapters, Celebrations, and Scholarships.  There is also a lot of exciting news about the womENcourage, the upcoming ACM-W Europe Celebration of Women in Computing.  Next month we will have more news about ACM-W changes and some other announcements as we kick off a new academic year.  Thanks, as always, for supporting ACM-W and women in computing.

~Valerie Barr, ACM-W Chair

News from ACM-W Celebrations

ACM-W Celebrations Transitions to a New Year

~Jodi Tims

As Valerie announced in her opening remarks, I am pleased to welcome Wendy Powley (Queens University, Ontario, CA) to the role of ACM-W Celebrations chair.  Wendy has been deeply involved with the project, having been a lead organizer of the Ontario Celebration (ONCWiC) for several years.  Wendy was instrumental in the effort to combine previous regional Celebrations in Canada to create the All Canada Celebration (CAN-CWiC), which will be held for the first time in January 2016.  Wendy also has been a part of the Celebrations committee during the 2014-2015 academic year as communications chair, a role she will now be seeking to fill (any interested readers?).

I have mixed emotions personally as I step out of the role of Celebrations chair and into the newly created role of ACM-W Vice Chair.  The past few years have seen rapid growth of the project and I anticipate more growth in the coming years, particularly on the international front.  It has been fun and rewarding to meet and interact with all of the Celebrations coordinators and each has enriched my experience in some way. 

I’d like to extend my heartfelt thanks to my committee – Rachelle Hippler (survey coordinator, Bowling Greens – Firelands), Martha Kosa (branding and swag coordinator, Tennessee Tech) and Wendy Powley.  I would not have been able to manage the project were it not for the tireless efforts of these women and am confident that the project is in good hands going forward.  I also want to thank Valerie Barr and Gloria Townsend for giving me the opportunity to be Celebrations chair back in 2012.

As I look forward to my new role as Vice Chair, I am excited about the many possibilities that exist for ACM-W as we continue to find new ways to support, celebrate, and advocate for women in the computing field.  The opportunity to partner with Valerie in this effort is truly exciting!

Finally, I encourage you to visit the Celebrations web page (/celebrations) and see the numerous events that are being planned for the 2015-2016 academic year.  Return to the page from time to time as information will be added as it becomes known.

News From ACM-W Scholarships

The ACM-W Scholarship for Attendance of Research Conferences program provides support for women students in Computer Science and related programs who wish to attend research conferences. The student does not have to present a paper at the conference to be eligible. Applications are evaluated in 6 cycles each year in order to distribute awards across a range of conferences, with 1-6 awards given for each group of applications. The 2014-2015 ACM-W Scholarships are made possible due to the generous support of Google and Oracle.

If the award is for attendance at one of the ACM special interest group conferences (SIG conferences), the SIG will most likely provide complementary conference registration and a mentor during the conference. The number of free registrations available varies from SIG to SIG.

ACM-W has helped students attend a wide range of meetings including SIGGRAPH, SIGCHI, ICDIPC, Women in Cyber Security, ACM EC, SIGCSE, IEEE Conference on Norbert Wiener in the 21st Century, DIS, IPDPS, ICCC, ACM CHI, AAMAS, FLAIRS, RO-MAN, WIMS, CSCW, New Interfaces for Musical Expressions, GECCO, SpringSim, and ICSE amongst others.

The scholarships expose students to prominent researchers in their field, introduce students to new research, and excite them about doing research themselves. We ask students to share with us some of their thoughts on the conference they attended and we never cease to find truly inspiring stories:

The next application deadline is October 15 for conferences taking place in December and January.  For more information and to apply visit: women.acm.org/scholarship.  If you have any questions, contact scholarship committee chair Prof. Adriana Compagnoni, Adriana.Compagnoni@stevens.edu

News From ACM-W Chapters

Please do a favor for the ACM-W Chapters Committee!  We would love to see every chapter’s website advertising ACM-W and celebrating the professional organization through our logo and name. 

Check your website right now and download and install our logo (above, or download it here).  While you are checking the website, look around your school’s suites, classrooms, and hallways.  Bulletin boards should host our logo and name, and you can find other creative places for telling your campus how much the professional organization values women in computing!  Wouldn’t it be nice to have an ACM-W Chapters’ poster for bulletin boards?  Start thinking about poster design and content ideas, because we will announce a contest next month.

News From ACM-W Europe

Vicki Hanson, Vice President of ACM to Speak at womENcourage 2015

As a continuation of the keynote speaker series for womENcourage 2015 we now travel to Scotland to speak with Vicki Hanson.  She is a Professor and Chair of Inclusive Technologies, School of Computing, University of Dundee, UK, and also a Distinguished Professor of Computing at Rochester Institute of Technology, USA, and an IBM Research Staff Member Emeritus.

Her research in human-computer interaction seeks to improve the accessibility of technology for the aging population and people with disabilities. Efforts she led at IBM include a bilingual educational application for deaf children (recognized as a National Merit Winner in the Johns Hopkins National Search for Computing to Assist Persons with Disabilities), and accessibilityWorks, a system allowing disabled users to adapt Web content to fit their needs (recognized by multiple awards including Product of the Year by the National Disabilities Council).  At Dundee, her work has examined ways in which mainstream technology can be changed to ensure all people can participate in the emerging digital economy. This work is expanding to include considerations of care home design and technology support to improve the quality of life for care home residents.

Professor Hanson is Vice President of ACM and serves on the ACM-W Europe Executive Committee. She is a Past Chair of the ACM SIG Governing Board and Past Chair of ACM SIGACCESS.  She co-founded ACM’s Transactions on Accessible Computing and has served on numerous conference program and organizing committees including ASSETS, CHI, CUU, Hypertext, and OOPSLA, as well as the ACM Awards and Fellows committees.

She is a Fellow of ACM, Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a Chartered Fellow of the British Computer Society, recipient of the Anita Borg Institute Woman of Vision Award for Social Impact, and recipient of the ACM SIGCHI Social Impact Award. She has received an IBM Corporate Award for Contributions to Accessibility, multiple IBM Outstanding Contribution Awards for her work in accessibility and education, the University of Oregon Arts and Sciences Alumni Fellows Award, and a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award.

• Why is the conference important to you?

  This conference is important to me as a way for women (particularly women in early stages of their careers) to understand the options available to those of us in computing.  The conference affords a number of networking opportunities to enrich careers of all attendees.   It also provides attendees the chance to learn about a number of technical areas within computing.

• What do you enjoy most about your work?

  My work has a number of different dimensions.   I have my research area, my interactions with students through teaching, and my involvement with the worldwide computing community through a number of ACM volunteer activities.

  My research area relates to using computers by people with diverse abilities and needs.  The goal is to ensure that people with disabilities as well as older users are fully able to participate in society.  As a goal, I feel constantly excited by this challenge and am passionate about the need to use our technology to benefit everyone.

  In terms of teaching, I am constantly invigorated by the challenge of keeping material fresh and relevant to students.   My teaching is directed at postgraduate education, working with students pursuing Masters degrees and PhDs in computing.

  I have been involved with ACM as a volunteer for most of my career.  Most notably, I currently serve as the Vice President of this international organization.  I consider it a huge honour to serve this community of computing professionals!   I’ve volunteered in a number of conference capacities as conference Chair and Programme Committee chair and as a member of numerous programme committees.   I’e also served as the Vice President (currently) of ACM’s Special Interest Group in HCI (SIGCHI) and previously as the Chair of the Special Interest Group on Accessible Computing (SIGACCESS). I’ve chaired the SIG Governing Board and served as the ACM Secretary-Treasurer.   In each of experiences, I’ve gained from the people I’ve met and the network of professionals from whom I could learn.

• What would you want the participants to learn from your keynote speech or the conference?

  From my keynote speech, I hope that participants gain a broader understanding of what we can do in computing.   My talk will focus on computing for people with diverse needs and I hope this raises awareness of accessibility issues and possibly even excites some people to think of diverse users in their work.

ACM-W UPV Women

ACM-W UPV of Polytechnic University of Valencia (Spain) was founded after creating and having experience as members and founders of ACM-UPV Student Chapter.

Only 10.8% of students of Computer Students from the ETSInf (Higher Technical School of Computer Engineering) of UPV are women. Our motivation to start ACM-W chapter was to encourage girls and women to study Computer Science, so they do not drop out for lack of motivation or for feel displaced.
(We started the chapter with a group of women undergraduate and masters sutdents, but soon more people joined, including a number of men, giving us another perspective about the issues that, as women, we have in the work and academia.)

We have organized various activities during the past year which are grouped into two blocks:

• Talk about "Animal Computer Interaction": a new line of research that tries to figure out how interact with animals using new technologies, such as tablets or drones.
• Fourth Bits in Feminine Conference: a series of conferences that seeks to discover the role of women in the professional and academic world in different areas of computer engineering. This included several lectures in which speakers talked about their areas of work and their academic and professional careers. The speakers were:
• Virginia Grande: Computer Engineer from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, she is dedicated to education research in Computer Science and human-computer interaction.
• María Cabezuelo: Computer Engineer from the UPV and currently engaged in the development of game software.
• Inés Toribio: Computer Engineer from the University of Valencia with over 10 years of experience in software quality assurance and testing.

In addition, we are working to implement a project in some schools of Valencia to introduce children between 8 and 10 years in programming, using graphical tools such as Scratch, and break the stereotypes that are created around the profession. These measures will encourage children to study engineering and, in particular Computer Science.

We want to thank the UPV, and especially the ETSINF and Informatics Museum of UPV, for providing the necessary resources to carry out the activities, and the support they have given us since we started.

Announcements

• ACM-W Europe womENcourage 2015

  check out the Blog by Poonam yadav — Why would I attend womENcourage 2015? Memories from womENcourage 2014

  womENcourage Career Fair: Are you looking for an internship or a permanent position?

  Let our supporters know that you are interested in talking with them at the Career Fair on 24 September.  When registering for womENcourage 2015, you have the opportunity to add your name to the CV database.  This database is being collected to allow you to inform the supporters in advance that you will be attending the Career Fair.  Our supporters – Inria, Google, Oracle, Bloomberg, Cisco, Facebook, Microsoft Research, Informatics Europe, Intel and FreeBSD – are very interested in meeting with you and talking with you.  Let them know you are interested in talking with them!  Sign up today.

  Register for the first ACM-WE and Codess hackathon – its FREE!

  Make something that will improve the world for someone less fortunate than you.  ACM-W Europe and Codess Hackathon sponsored by Intel® and Microsoft will be held in Uppsala, Sweden on September 24th 2015, in conjunction with womENcourage 2015 celebration of women in computing. The challenge is to build innovative and exciting projects which improve the day to day lives of people using the Intel® Edison Development Board and the Intel IOT DevKit.  Your resulting project could be anything that will help humanity.

  All you need to bring for the hackathon is your laptop. We will provide the computing supplies, food and drinks.

• 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.

Welcome from the ACM-W Chair

Welcome to the July, 2015, issue of ACM-W Connections.  We took a break in June while many of us were off having the annual ACM-W Council meeting, but we are back now with lots of news.  And in the August issue we’ll have a report on some of the changes and initiatives that we discussed at the Council meeting.  Stay tuned!

Many ACM-W participants have been very busy lately.  This month’s issue of ACM-W Connections features a lot of news from ACM-W Europe, including many announcements regarding the upcoming womENcourage event, the ACM-W Europe Celebration of Women in Computing.  Make sure that you check on the registration deadline as well as information about scholarships, the hackathon being presented jointly with Codess, and the career fair.

Meanwhile, our ACM-W India colleagues are involved in the 3rd International Symposium on Women in Computing and Informatics. 

Rounding out our international news, ACM-W is a sponsor for TechKobwa ’15.  This project provides a residential technology/engineering camp for Rwandan girls and their teachers.  The project is also supported by the U.S. Peace Corps, IBM, Michigan State University, the Rwanda Ministry of Youth and ICT, and IEEE.  The project leaders expect that the evaluation results from this summer will make it possible for them to get funding for a 5-year project that will help transform the status of women in Rwanda and build ICT capacity.  ACM-W is delighted to be helping with this effort!

Back in the U.S., at ACM headquarters, the big news is that Bobby Schnabel will be the next CEO of ACM.  Bobby brings to the table his rich experience with ACM, as a faculty member and administrator, and a deep commitment to diversity in computing.  We look forward to working with Bobby as ACM-W continues to expand and strengthen our programs.

Still in the U.S., this month we have a report from KYCC-WiC, the Kentucky Community College Celebration of Women in Computing.  We support many Celebration events each year, but this is the only one so far that has a primary focus on community college students.  It serves as an important model for that kind of event, and for building a strong relationship between 2-year and 4-year schools.

Finally, I know that people change email addresses over time, set up forwarding, etc.  If you are receiving the newsletter at multiple accounts, or would like to receive it at a different address, please let me know. 

~Valerie Barr, ACM-W Chair

News From ACM-W Chapters

ACM-W is accepting applications for funding ($300 maximum award) that will support existing ACM-W Chapters tjat wish to hold joint events with schools that do not have ACM-W Chapters. The event can be held on the campus of any of the participating schools.

Read more here and don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions!

News from ACM-W Celebrations

A Look Back at Celebrations 2014-2015

The Celebrations project wrapped up another great year with thirteen conferences held in locations around the world.   Here are some of the highlights:

• Over 2000 undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and industry representatives attended. 
• The inaugural Cuban Celebration of Women in Computing was held in March.
• The All Canada Celebration of Women in Computing was announced in March and the first event will be held in spring of 2016.
• Scholarships to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC 2015) were awarded to the winners of poster competitions.  We congratulate the following women for achieving this honor:

 
2015-2016 promises to be a banner year. Be sure to read the August issue of Connections for details on what events will occur and some exciting developments for the Celebrations project!

Community Colleges: An ACM-W Celebration of Women in Computing for You!

Contributed by Elizabeth K. Hawthorne

On April 10-11, 2015, the second Kentucky Community College ACM-W Celebration of Women in Computing (KYCC-WiC) took place on the recently-opened Newtown campus of Bluegrass Community and Technical College in Lexington. Melanie Williamson and Cindy Tucker, Associate Professors of Computer & Information Technologies at Bluegrass, once again served as co-chairs for this year’s KYCC-WiC. Prof. Pam Bridgman from Somerset Community College and Prof. Theresa Schmitt from Owensboro Community and Technical College also served on the organizing committee.

Attendance more than doubled from KYCC-WiC 2013. Over 100 faculty and students from both two-year and four-year colleges (University of Kentucky and Northern Kentucky University) enjoyed KYCC-WiC 2015. In addition, a faculty member with nine of her students from Bryan Station High School Academy of Information Technology in Lexington attended the ACM-W Celebration. Also new in 2015 were community college faculty and students from the neighboring state of Tennessee.

Northern Kentucky University organizes the Tri-WiC ACM-W Celebration on alternate years of KYCC-WiC. Tri-WiC includes a community college track, which helps attract both two-year and four-year students and faculty from area colleges and universities in the tri-cities of Lexington, KY, Louisville, KY, and Cincinnati, OH. The organizers of both KYCC-WiC and Tri-WiC collaborate with one another to offer ACM-W Celebrations every year for their shared region. This model of alternating years between two-year and four-year colleges is the first of its kind among ACM-W Celebrations.

The KYCC-WiC organizers came up with a fun and innovative idea. A deck of Notable Women in Computing, Keep our History playing cards was placed in each of the conference swag bags. Each attendee then had the opportunity to have her (his) picture taken during registration and have it printed on a blank playing card – the Ace of choice – with space leftover for writing a personal computing history. Another inventive feature was the showing of the Women in Computing: Voices in Video that was produced by Bluegrass Assistant Professor Stephanie Fitch and her digital cinematic arts students. Prof. Fitch’s short film captured video clips from several student and faculty attendees as well as the conference organizers. Some of the Notable Women in Computing cards were also included in the production. A link to this innovative short film is available from kycc-wic.com.

Community college faculty and students are strongly encouraged to attend an ACM-W Women in Computing Celebration. Visit women.acm.org/celebrations to find a Celebration near you, or learn how to start a new event.

News From ACM-W India

The Third International Symposium on Women in Computing and Informatics (WCI-2015)

WCI-2015 will be held in Kochi, Kerala, India during August 10-13, 2015. WCI-2015 will serve as a platform to explore the opportunities as well as the diverse challenges facing women in computing and allied areas.  WCI-2015 will provide a great opportunity to network with students, professionals, and researchers.

The Symposium is co-located with Fourth International Conference on Advances in Computing, Communications and Informatics (ICACCI-2015).   WCI-2015 is organized in association with Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Trivandrum Professional Chapter, ACM Cochin Chapter, ACM Committee on Women in Computing (ACM-W) India and IWNN of INNS India-Regional Chapter.

The conference will be held at SCMS Group of Institutions, Corporate Office Campus, Prathap Nagar, Muttom, Aluva, Kochi (Ernakulam), Kerala, India. The details of this conference can be browsed from its website.

News From ACM-W Europe

ACM-W Women in Thessaloniki

In the city of Thessaloniki, in Greece, enthusiasm was all around and excitement was in the air. I was thrilled to be part of the ACM-W Women in Thessaloniki celebration, where women and men from the area had gathered together, advocating for women in computing. The event was a celebration of the women in the area, with local professionals explaining and discussing their work; with students from ACM and ACM-W chapters, organizing different ways of collaborating with local groups such as SheSharp and Code it like a girl; and, finally, with a panel where attendees engaged in a discussion until the venue closed!

This was the kick-off event of the newly chartered Aristotle University of Thessaloniki ACM-W Student Chapter: a young chapter that has already collaborated with the experienced CITY College ACM-W Chapter, and the local ACM Student chapters. Their work was impressive, and the result a complete success. I can’t wait for the next time!

Blog – Improve your bottom line – improve diversity

How can you improve the diversity in your company? Read the blog and send your employees to womENcourage 2015 Celebration of women in computing

Career Fair: are you looking for an internship or a permanent position

Let our supporters know that you are interested in talking with them at the Career Fair on 24 September. When registering for womENcourage 2015, you have the opportunity to add your name to the CV database. This database is being collected to allow you to inform the supporters in advance that you will be attending the Career Fair. Our supporters – Inria, Google, Oracle, Bloomberg, Cisco, Facebook, Microsoft Research, Informatics Europe, Intel and FreeBSD – are very interested in meeting with you and talking with you. Let them know you are interested in talking with them! Sign up today.

Register for the first ACM-W and Codess hackathon – it’s FREE

Make something that will improve the world for someone less fortunate than you. ACM-W Europe and Codess Hackathon sponsored by Intel® and Microsoft will be held in Uppsala, Sweden on September 24th 2015, in conjunction with womENcourage 2015 celebration of women in computing. The challenge is to build innovative and exciting projects which improve the day to day lives of people using the Intel® Edison Development Board and the Intel IOT DevKit. Your resulting project could be anything that will help humanity.

All you need to bring for the hackathon is your laptop. We will provide the computing supplies, food and drinks.

Announcements

• ACM-W Europe womENcourage 2015

  Early Bird Registration Closes August 5th Register now.

  Registration for ACM-W Europe womENcourage 2015.

  Register to make sure you get a spot at womENcourage 2015 Celebration of women in computing, join us for the Career Fair, Workshops, Panels, Papers and the entire program. — Early Bird Registration ends on August 5th—- register now and save money!

  Google Europe Travel and Conference Grants

  Google has very generously opened a Travel Grant for attending womENcourage 2015 celebration of women in computing in Uppsala, Sweden next fall. You can find out more about womENcourage on the webpage: http://womencourage.acm.org/
  The application is due July 31 and you can apply using this application. Send in your request by the deadline. In the application you can select the events for which you wish to apply.

• 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.

Welcome from the ACM-W Chair

This month’s issue of ACM-W Connections contains a report from our Michigan Celebration of Women in Computing and a number of reports from ACM-W Europe.  Many of these include information about womENcourage, the ACM-W Europe Celebration event that will take place in Uppsala, Sweden, in September.  We hope that many women in computing from around Europe will join us for that event, so check out the registration information, sign up, and pass it along.  It promises to be a fantastic event. 

~Valerie Barr, ACM-W Chair

News From ACM-W Chapters

We would love to feature students’ summer research on our ACM-W Chapters Facebook group site.  As the summer progresses, send photos and brief write-ups about research to gct@depauw.edu.  Be a role model for our ACM-W Chapters members. 

News from ACM-W Celebrations

The Michigan Celebration of Women in Computing Holds its Fifth Event

Contributed by Laura Dillon

On March 20th and 21st, over 220 women convened on the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor campus for the Fifth Michigan Celebration of Women in Computing (MICWiC 2015).  Geared primarily for undergraduate women in computing fields, the event was organized by women from nine Michigan colleges and universities and two Michigan-based companies.

 

The conference started on Friday, March 20th with a poster session, a banquet, and a keynote entitled "Talking to R2D2" by Dr. Joyce Chai from Michigan State University’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering. As stated by one attendee, “[Joyce] was clearly an expert in her field and displayed passion in her academic and out-of-work activities!”  Friday evening also featured two Birds of a Feather Sessions and speed interviewing. 

The following day started with a keynote from Heidi Musser of USAA on leadership, diversity, innovation and transformation.  The talk was very well received. One student commented, “[Heidi’s] talk motivated me to not be afraid of the difficult tasks in the future. It was refreshing to not have to ‘be perfect’ as I feel I have to in classes a lot. The focus here was on learning and that was good and the way things should be.”

Saturday’s events also included several parallel panel sessions, lightening talks, a poster session and a session on outreach.  MICWiC 2015 concluded with a career fair that connected student attendees with several area employers.

 

News From ACM-W Europe

Girls Day in Germany — Workshop on Programming for Kids

On April 23rd, Girls Day in Germany,  Intel GmbH in Munich Germany opened their doors to 40 students to demonstrate opportunities in the computing field.  I was lucky enough to be able to teach 10 of the 40 girls the basics of computer programming as one of the workshops during the day.  We used Ardublock with Arduino attached to Intel Galileo boards, breadboard, and wires to program a Galileo board with led lights blinking like a stoplight.   The girls attending the workshop were very positive about what they learned and how easy it was to program the board.  I am hoping this workshop will encourage them to do more programming and learn more about STEM studies.

We are repeating this workshop for kids at ACM-W Europe womENcourage Celebration of Women in Computing. You can see in the above picture the program they wrote and how Ardublock changed it into code which was downloaded and executed on the processor.
The duration of the workshop at Uppsala will be 3 hours. Young minds are free to create a variety of prototypes using LED’s, wires and other small hardware components. It’s time to sign up for the workshop and start thinking of what you would want to create.

For those who are teachers or parents, the workshop is easily reproducible. If you are interested in duplicating this kids programming workshop for your students or children, send an email to bbachmayer@gmail.com.

Make something that will improve the world for someone less fortunate than you are.  ACM-W Europe and Codess Hackathon, sponsored by Intel® and Microsoft, will be held in Uppsala, Sweden, on September 24th 2015, in conjunction with womENcourage 2015 Celebration of Women in Computing. The challenge is to build innovative and exciting projects which improve the day-to-day lives of people using the Intel® Edison Development Board and the Intel IOT DevKit.  Your resulting project could be anything that will help humanity.

All you need to bring for the hackathon is your laptop. We will provide the computing supplies, food and drinks.

Announcements

• ACM-W Europe womENcourage 2015

  Scholarship deadline for ACM-W Europe womENcourage 2015 is May 20th!

  Apply NOW for a scholarship to ACM-W Europe womENcourage 2015 Celebration of Women in Computing. Scholarships are available to students studying at a European university to attend womENcourage 2015 thanks to our very generous supporters.  Inria, Google, Oracle, Cisco, Bloomberg, Facebook, Microsoft Research, Informatics Europe and Intel. Apply now!!  http://womencourage.acm.org/grants.cfm 

  Early Bird Registration is open!

  Registration for ACM-W Europe womENcourage 2015 (http://womencourage.acm.org/index.cfm). Register to make sure you get a spot at womENcourage 2015 Celebration of women in computing.   Join us for the Career Fair,  Workshops,  Panels, Papers and the entire program.   — Early Bird Registration ends on June 15 —- register now and save money!!

• 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.

Welcome from the ACM-W Chair

There continue to be many exciting events and developments in the ACM-W world! Here’s just a summary to whet your appetite for the material in this month’s newsletter:

• We are seeing ongoing growth in the number of chapters and are now just shy of 90 worldwide. The newsletter includes information about our new collaboration with NCWIT, funded by Google, to further increase the number of chapters and provide a national infrastructure for U.S. chapters.
• You can read the report from the first Cuban Celebration of Women in Computing. It was a great success!
• Very exciting news about the Athena Lecturer Award – thanks to Google, the award has been increased to $25,000, and you can read about the 2015 recipient, Jennifer Widom.
• Finally, we’ve included a report from one of our scholarship recipients. In the coming months we will start bringing you news more regularly about the scholarship program.

I continue to be amazed by and thankful for the commitment of all of the people who volunteer their time to ensure the success of these ACM-W activities, and I am grateful for the support we get from staff at ACM Headquarters. As you read this month’s newsletter, I am sure that you, too, will appreciate all that these people do to advance ACM-W’s mission and help improve the situation for women in computing.

~Valerie Barr, ACM-W Chair

Awards and Scholarships

• The ACM-W Athena Lecturer Award

  

  The ACM-W Athena Lecturer Award celebrates women researchers who have made fundamental contributions to Computer Science. This year’s recipient is Jennifer Widom, noted for her fundamental concepts and architectures of active database systems, a major area of research in the database field today. Active databases allow application developers to embed logic into the database that allows actions to be executed when certain conditions are met. Active database systems have had a major impact on commercial database management systems.

  This Award is an annual award made by the ACM-W, begun in 2006-7. It has honored a number of stellar women in a variety of fields whose nomination packages are put together by their home SIG. The past winners include Deborah Estrin, Karen Spärck Jones, Shafi Goldwasser, Susan Eggers, Mary Jane Irwin, Judith Olson, Nancy Lynch, Katherine Yelick and Susan Dumais. Each winner gives a keynote at the SIG conference of her choice and is awarded a gift from Google Inc., originally at $10,000 and raised to $25,000 this year.

  “Jennifer Widom has had a profound impact on the database field,” said Judith Olson, who heads the ACM-W awards committee. “Her contributions have influenced both the direction of research and of commercial products. But just as important, she is passionate about teaching, be it in the classroom or through her highly successful series of MOOCs.”

• ACM-W Scholarship Recipient Report

  Sandra Dylus, a Masters candidate in Computer Science at Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel received an ACM-W scholarship to attend the International Conference on Functional Programming in Gothenburg, Sweden, in September, 2014. Here is her report.

  

  Thanks to a scholarship from ACM-W, I had the chance to visit the International Conference on Functional Programming (ICFP) in Gothenburg. I am currently writing my master’s thesis in the area of functional programming and plan to continue my academic education as a PhD student afterwards, thus, it was really exciting to attend the most popular conference in that area. The conference was held for three whole days and I attended all sessions; all in all, it was a lot to process, but I got a good insight into current research topics. Additionally, I’ve met a lot of nice people that are interested in functional programming as well, and, hopefully, I will meet up with some of them at other conferences.

  In addition to people of my own level, I had the chance to meet two important women in Computer Science. The local organisers (especially, Ramona Enache from the University of Chalmers – thanks again for your efforts) arranged two meetings for me: one lunch with Kathleen Fisher, a professor at the Computer Science Department at Tufts, who also gave the opening keynote of the conference; the second lunch was with Zena Ariola, a professor at the University of Oregon. Both of them were really friendly and open about their background and academic career. It was very refreshing to here a woman’s opinion on topics in the life of a PhD student. As a bonus, Zena Ariola introduced me to other important people of the community: Matthias Felleisen, Philip Wadler and Patricia Johann.

  In addition to the three conference days of the ICFP, I decided to attend one affiliated event named CUFP, which took place at Saturday, the last day of events around the conference. CUFP is the event for “Commercial Users of Functional Programming” and the third day of the event consisted of talks of people from the industry. It was nice to see both in one week: the usage as well as the associated people of functional programming in academia and industry.

  All in all, I had a great experience attending the ICFP and the talks at CUFP; everybody I talked to was very friendly and encouraging. I am looking forward to continue as a PhD student next year and meet like-minded people at other conferences, since I feel already very welcome in the community.

News From ACM-W Chapters

As the academic year draws to a close, elect new ACM-W Chapters officers and plan for fall 2015. Be sure to honor seniors and also new majors. At DePauw University, our ACM-W Chapter holds a “passing the torch” celebration, giving each woman a rose and asking seniors to give their best advice and tips-for-success to younger women.

ACM-W, Google, and NCWIT Join Forces to Grow and Network ACM-W Chapters

ACM-W proudly announces a new partnership with NCWIT (the National Center for Women & IT) and Google. NCWIT, represented by Ruthe Farmer, recently secured a $500,000 grant from Google to build capacity for our ACM-W Student Chapters Project by:

• Developing tools and resources for ACM-W Chapters, especially a Chapters-in-a-Box resource
• Investing funding to expand the NCWIT Student Seed Fund to different levels of Chapter awards, staged for institutions of different sizes and organizations in different stages of development
• Seeding thirty-five brand new ACM-W Chapters over the course of the next two years
• Connecting all ACM-W Chapters through a national network
• Developing a plan for gatherings of ACM-W Chapters officers and members, whether those gatherings co-locate with the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, the Richard Tapia Conference, or a future dedicated conference<\li>

NCWIT, Google, and ACM-W announced the new Google grant program at SIGCSE in Kansas City in early March. Details concerning the bullet points above will follow soon. ACM-W considers the grant’s timing to be perfect, as the number of ACM-W chapters has doubled in the last two years. Rapid expansion in the number of chapters is due, in part, to the growth of ACM-W Celebrations and the desires of Celebration attendees to retain the conference energy, momentum, and outcomes until the next conference date by founding new ACM-W Chapters in the regions served by the Celebrations.

News from ACM-W Celebrations

Remarks from the Celebrations project chair

It is difficult to believe that we are fast approaching the conclusion of another academic year. By the end of May there will have been a total of thirteen Celebrations events held around the world, including inaugural events in Cuba (see the report below) and Abu Dhabi. I wish to express my personal thanks to all of the people who worked tirelessly to make these events successful. I also want to thank my Celebrations committee members: Rachelle Kristof Hippler (surveys), Wendy Powley (communications), and Martha Kosa (swag). As the number of Celebrations has grown, their work has become integral to our ability to support this amazing project.

~ Jodi Tims

First Cuban Celebration of Women in Computing – CCWiC 2015

Contributed by Marisniulkis Lescaille Cos, CCWiC-Cuba, Coordinator

The inaugural Cuban Celebration of Women in Computing was held March 24 & 25, 2015, at the University of Information Sciences (UCI) in Havana. More than 75 students, professionals and academics from all over the country convened to promote the work of women in computing. The event was hosted by VenusIT, a local women in computing community.

presented by Dr. Annette Norales Gonzales-Quevedo

The opening address was delivered by Dr. Lizandra Arza Pérez, director of Research at UCI and Wendy Powley, ACM-W representative. The first keynote of the conference, “Fuzzy Cognitive Maps for Decision Making”, was presented by Dr. Karina Pérez Teruel, UCI professor. This was followed by several presentations highlighting the work of students, professionals and academics in diverse areas of computing, many of which focused on mobile and security applications to address problems in the University and the country. The afternoon of the first day included a video presentation by the Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ndozi Adichie entitled “The Danger of a Single Story”, followed by the second keynote “3D Virtual Environments for Education” by Enis Blanca Cuba. The day concluded with a panel on closing the gender gap in computing. “Equality in opportunities is what we must be looking for”, said Dr. Annette Morales González-Quevedo from the Cenatav Advanced Technologies Application Center in closing a very productive and rewarding journey.

The second day of the conference started early with the presentation of Presentation by Dr. Annette Morales González-Quevedo
the book Gender, Code and Youth, Building More Inclusive Societies, by Yarina Amoroso. The morning session continued with more student, professional, and academic presentations followed by a game where teams competed to recognize notable Cuban and international women in computing, science and history. The conference concluded with a luncheon, during which awards were presented for best paper (Msc Rosalba Carralero Medina), best engineering solution by a woman (Alisbet Fernández Rojas), significant social impact by a woman (Maidelis Machado Díaz) and best student paper (Yanet Riquelme Santiago and Claudia Pío Morón).

Announcements

• OurCS 2015 Registration Open! Carnegie Mellon’s Research-focused Workshop for Undergrad Women in Computer Science

  Registration Now Open for OurCS 2015! Opportunities for Undergraduate Research In Computer Science

  OurCS (Opportunities for Undergraduate Research In Computer Science) 2015 is a 3 day research-focused workshop for undergraduate women in CS School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University, October 23-25, 2015.

  The workshop will give undergraduate women opportunities to:

  • Meet others who share their curiosity and interest in computer science
  • Tackle hands-on research problems
  • Learn about life in graduate school
  • Present a talk/poster: great for first-timers!
  • Great speakers and panels!

  Attendees will work in a small team led by faculty or industry researcher. After registering, attendees choose their top 3 research choices, which are listed at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/ourcs/Team_Leaders_and_Projects.html

  $50 Registration fee includes 3 nights hotel and all meals! To learn more details and to register, see the website at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/ourcs/register.html. For a preview, read about the about the 2011 OurCS workshop in the ACM-W 2011 Winter Newsletter: CMU School of Computer Science Workshop Inspires Young Women from the USA and Beyond to Explore Research in ComputingWorkshop sponsored by Carnegie Mellon’s School of Computer Science, Oracle, Capital One, Carnegie Mellon Qatar, and Women@SCS

• 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.

Welcome from the ACM-W Chair

Last month we announced the first Cuban ACM-W Celebration of Women in Computing (which is happening later this month). Continuing with exciting news in 2015, we are delighted to announce a new effort, in collaboration with NCWIT and funded by Google, that will see significant growth in ACM-W student chapters. Please read the blurb and click the link to see the full announcement.

This month’s issue of Connections also includes very interesting reports from the Ohio Celebration event and from an event held jointly by ACM-W India and the Madras Management Association. Please check these out and see what our ACM-W volunteers are pursuing!

Finally, just a personal note. Last week I spoke to two CS classes at Bard High School Early College in New York City. Of the 60 total CS students, 44 are young women! That was very exciting to see. Let us know where you’ve been advocating for CS and for women in computing!

~Valerie Barr, ACM-W Chair

News From ACM-W Chapters

ACM-W Chapters is thrilled to be partnering in a $500,000 grant from Google to the National Center for Women & IT to create 35 new ACM-W chapters and help network the new chapters with the 83 existing ACM-W chapters. The grant news is ” hot off the press,” so look for more concrete information (as it becomes available) on the ACM-W and ACM Facebook group pages and websites – and in a later edition of the newsletter.

News from ACM-W Celebrations

Remarks from Celebration Committee Chair

It was great to see many of our Celebration coordinators in attendance at the SIGCSE 2015 Technical Symposium in Kansas City at the beginning of March. During a town hall meeting organized by Gloria Townsend, many of the coordinators offered advice and support about organizing celebrations events. The enthusiasm for the project and the interest of others in exploring celebration events in new regions was evident in the discussion.

This spring will see many events being held in several locations in the US as well as in Cuba and Abu Dhabi (both first-time celebrations!). It will be exciting to hear about each of them in the coming months.

As always, if there are any issues of concern or ways in which I or my committee can be helpful, please don’t hesitate to reach out (jltims@bw.edu).

~ Jodi Tims

The Ohio Celebration of Women in Computing – a Post-Celebration Report

by Bettina Bair, The Ohio State University, OCWiC Publicity Chair

OCWiC was held at the spacious Lodge at Sawmill Creek Resort in Huron, Ohio on February 20-21, 2015. The nearly 200 attendees ranged from freshmen to graduate students, from faculty to women working in IT jobs in industry. There were 29 colleges and universities from Ohio represented. The event was highly successful, as was evident in some of the comments of attendees.

“Seeing other women achieve so much helps me to positively see my future in the field, and what I can potentially do to impact it.”

“I was thrilled to have the opportunity to share what I’ve been working so hard on. I was also very encouraged that the audience had excellent questions.”

[photo credit: Robert A. Walker]

Career panels focused on either industry or academic careers. In the industry career panel, the audience was able to hear from professionals from companies like Microsoft, Marathon, OE Connection, GE and Cardinal Health. Academic career panelists from Wright State University, Allegheny College, Case Western Reserve University and University of Dayton spoke about their decision to pursue research and how they balance the demands of career with personal life.

Undergraduate students had the opportunity to showcase their research with a poster session that kicked off the conference on Saturday morning. The professionally executed posters showed everything from the benefits of hackathons to a methodology for finding transcription factor binding sites. Two students, Christine Antonsen of Oberlin College and Kiera Dobbs, College of Wooster, were awarded $1000 to attend the international Grace Hopper Celebration in Houston, TX later this year. Honorable Mentions were awarded to Samantha Mater, Krista Lafentres, Stephen Checkoway, Cynthia Taylor of Oberlin College and Alexandra Coman, Victoria Kerr, Thomas Bowersock, Yuki Matoba, Andrew Warren, of Ohio Northern University.

paper presentations were made by faculty and graduate students alike. The diversity of the topics illustrated the breadth and scope of opportunities in computing. There were presentations on cracking binary analysis, performance versus quality of responses in online systems and internships.

[photo credit: Robert A. Walker]

the two day conference, the women had many opportunities for informal socializing and networking. Besides the informal meal arrangements with seating at large tables, there were interactive workshops and a dance party that ran late into the evening.

[photo credit: RockRollExpress.com]

The highlight of the conference was the keynote speech by Dr. Lynn Andrea Stein, a founding faculty member at Olin College of Engineering, Professor of Computer and Cognitive Science, and Associate Dean and Director of the Collaboratory. Stein’s research spans the fields of artificial intelligence, programming languages, and human-computer interaction. Dr. Stein’s inspiring talk wove together themes of artificial and human intelligence to explore the biological and cultural foundations of diversity and bias.

Most attendees left the conference with new professional and academic goals, and strategies for achieving them. For example,

“I plan on taking a slightly different approach to acquiring a job, and internship.”

“[I plan to] take into consideration the pursuit of a higher education past what I am currently pursuing.”

“I found out that some grad schools that people were attending had a more universal approach to artificial intelligence and robotics than others, so I will look for a grad school that takes this approach.”

The OCWiC conference represented a rare opportunity for women in computing to interact and share experiences in a collegial and collaborative environment.

More info: www.ocwic.org

Join our listserv! http://mailman.cse.ohio-state.edu/mailman/listinfo/ocwic

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ocwic.org

Twitter: https://twitter.com/OCWiC

News From ACM-W Europe

It is not too late if you did not submit a paper, panel or workshop for womENcourage 2015. Poster submissions are due on March 25th, so there is still time to submit your work for womENcourage 2015 (womencourage.acm.org). Posters will be on display the entire 2.5 days of omENcourage celebration of women in computing.

Check out the website and social media pages to stay up-to-date on all the details of womENcourage celebrations.

Detailed information is available at: http://womencourage.acm.org

womENcourage 2015 is supported by INRIA, Google and Oracle (Diamond), Bloomberg and Cisco (Platinum) and Informatics Europe and Microsoft Research (Silver.) Support is used to help students studying in Europe to attend the celebration.

Please pass this on to your friends, students, colleagues and your organization and encourage them to contribute!

Meet the Keynote speakers for womENcourage 2015

Virginia and Andreína, conference chairs of womENcourage 2015, are pleased to announce that the ACM-W Europe womENcourage 2015 Celebration of Women in Computing on September 24-26 will have three keynote addresses. Read the entire article in the ACM-W Europe newsletter page

Informatica Feminale August 17 to 28th Bremen, Germany

18th International Summer University for Women in Informatics Informatica Feminale will be held in Bremen in August at the University of Bremen in Germany from Monday, August 17, 2015 until Friday, August 28, 2015. Women students of all disciplines, levels and different types of institutions of higher education as well as all women interested in computing and women IT professionals from all over the world are invited! You will experience two weeks of professional studies and establish a network with women having manifold backgrounds in a friendly and stimulating environment at the University of Bremen.

IEEE Women in Engineering International Leadership Conference

Join IEEE Women in Engineering for the international leadership conference (http://ieee-wie-ilc.or) which will be held 23-25 April 2015 in San Jose, California, with a theme of “Lead Beyond. Accelerating Innovative Women Who Change the World.” The conference will focus on leadership, innovation and entrepreneurship educational tracks. More than 500 mid-level to senior-level technical professionals are expected to attend the conference.

News From ACM-W India

The collaboration between ACM-W and the Madras Management Association (MMA) has always led to interesting and engaging talks. Industry leaders speak about a wide range of topics at these sessions and the audience – comprised of students, industry veterans from varied backgrounds – truly savours them. Our February 2015 talk was no different. Ajitha Molakalapalli of Paypal helped demystify the world of online and mobile payments.

Ajitha works as a Sr. Manager in the Data Technology Organization as PayPal. She has 15+ years of experience both in the US and India. She worked previously at Sun Microsystems and then at Paypal. Paypal, being the pioneer in the world of mobile payments, has a very deep commitment towards this technology and is constantly pushing the boundaries. Ajitha shared some of her insights and future trends with us.

The talk saw her cover the basics of mobile payments for those of us unfamiliar with the under the hood details.This included its history, growth, and current technologies used for mobile payments. She also spoke of how users gravitate towards convenience and, as with any industry, a wave of innovation is driving a dramatic shift in the way consumers are making payments. Of particular interest and note was her reference to India and the widespread use of smart phones and feature phones and the convenience of making payments using them. Security, integrated promotions are some of the other key she alluded to as factors prompting consumers to use mobile payments. Just as the magnetic strip revolutionized payment by plastic credit card, near-field communication and other fast-evolving technologies will facilitate the move to payment using mobile technologies. She also brought up the multibillion-dollar opportunity waiting for the stakeholders in this domain.

The talk was chaired by Prof Ramanujam, IMSC, who is an ACM member/volunteer and is on the committee of ACM Chennai Professional Chapter.  ACM-W India president, Dr. Sheila Anand gave the welcome address. Around 70 participants, including industry professionals, bankers, consultants and students made for an engaged audience. Ajitha also kept them enraptured with the videos she included to demonstrate how mobile payments were made. The talk came to a close with a very active Q & A session. Overall, it was a fascinating evening of discussions about Money matters in the mobile world!

Announcements

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.

Welcome from the ACM-W Chair

I anticipate that 2015 will be a year of numerous exciting announcements from ACM-W as we continue to grow and increase our reach and activities around the world. The first bit of exciting news has to do with our Celebration activities, but I won’t say more here – please read the announcement from Jodi Tims in her monthly update.

This issue also includes a report about the all-India event that was co-hosted by ACM India and ACM-W India, an update on the upcoming ACM-W Europe womENcourage event; and a reminder for student chapters about the ACM chapter awards.

In this issue was also have a fabulous interview with Dr. Fran Berman that was done by ACM-W volunteer Sarah Loos. In addition to wearing her many professional hats, Fran has been a staunch supporter of and advocate for women in computing, has participated several times in our New York Celebration of Women in Computing, and we thank her for taking the time to sit down and talk so candidly with Sarah. Though focused on the early career issues that face a new PhD, the interview is full of advice that will be useful for every reader.

For those of you in cold climates, I hope that you are managing okay during this fierce winter. I understand from Reyyan Ayfer, chair of ACM-W Europe, that there was snow in Ankara, Turkey! And check out our Facebook page – after a recent flurry of activity, we now have over 1870 people who Like our page, with more people joining almost daily. If you haven’t taken a look yet, we post news and information about women in computing, and promote ACM members whenever we can!

~Valerie Barr, ACM-W Chair

Articles of Interest

Fran Berman, the Edward P. Hamilton Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Chair of the Research Data Alliance / US, and Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, is interviewed by Sarah Loos, a senior Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University and former Student Trustee of the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology. Berman’s gives advice all reader’s can apply, with a special focus on early career development. Read the full interview here .

News From ACM-W Chapters

It is time to think about applying for an ACM-W Chapter award. ACM holds a contest in April every year for several categories, including: best service project, best website, best activity. The ACM chapter webpage contains detailed information about the contect; expect more information closer to the April deadline for applications. We would love to see an ACM-W Chapter’s name on the list of winners next year!

News from ACM-W Celebrations – Canadian Celebrations Unite!

We are thrilled to announce the launch of the Canadian Celebration of Women in Computing (CANCWiC), reaching out to women across the entire country, with a first conference in Ottawa in Spring, 2016. Canada has a rich history of ACM-W Celebrations. In 2014, the Ontario Celebration (ONCWiC) held its 5th conference, and the Pacific Northwest Celebration (PNW-WiC) was launched in Vancouver that same year. In October 2012, the Atlantic Canadian Celebration (ACC-WiC) was held in Amherst, Nova Scotia. After so many successful local events, CAN-CWiC came about when the ONCWiC steering committee was reorganized to include industry representation and participation from the leadership of PNW-WiC. Wendy Powley (Queen’s University, Kingston) has led the ONCWiC committee since its beginning, while Ann Condon (University of British Columbia, Vancouver) represented the PNW-WiC leadership in the discussions. Wendy and Ann have been amazing leaders of their independent celebrations and we cannot thank them enough for their efforts to extend ACM-W’s activities in Canada. Their combined leadership makes the upcoming CAN-CWiC conference a much anticipated event. The future vision of the CAN-CWiC committee is to vary the location of CAN-CWiC each year to encourage broad participation from Canadian institutions.

News From ACM-W Europe

womENcourage 2015 Poster Ready for Distribution

The womENcourage poster is ready for distribution. Please print it and post in your work area!

womENcourage 2015 Poster Submissions Deadline: March 25, 2015

There is still time to submit a poster for womENcourage 2015. Poster submissions are due on March 25th. Posters will be on display the entire 2.5 days of womENcourage celebration of women in computing.

Check out the website and social media pages to stay up-to-date on all the details of womENcourage celebrations.

Detailed information is available at http://womencourage.acm.org/

womENcourage 2015 is supported by INRIA and Google (Diamond), Bloomberg and Cisco (Platinum) and Informatics Europe and Microsoft Research (Silver.) Support is used to help students studying in Europe to attend the celebration.

Please pass this on to your friends, students, colleagues and your company and encourage them to contribute! And check us out on Facebook and Twitter.

News From ACM-W India

For the 6th year in a row, ACM India and ACM-W India hosted the annual event celebrating computer science in India. As per precedent, we brought in some truly esteemed guests and speakers to make the event the great success that it was. Feb 5th, 6th and 7th saw many esteemed ACM professional and student chapter members descend on the BITS Pilani, Goa campus for a few days of invigorating talks and presentations. The event was hosted by the ACM Goa Professional chapter.

Day 1 saw the re-instating of Inter Research Institute Student Seminar (IRISS). This provided a forum for research scholars from Indian academic institutes to present their work and was followed by a poster presentation for the delegates to view and interact with the students. 16 of the best PHD students also presented their work as talks. Professor Krithi Ramamritham, IIT Bombay delivered an engaging keynote address on “Smart things”. Professor S Srikanth of IIT Bombay delivered a invited talk and the day closed with many potential employers presenting their problem statements for the benefit of the researchers.

Day 2 dawned bright and early and held the main agenda for the ACM India event. The inauguration happened in the presence of Professor Alexander Wolf, President of ACM and Professor at Imperial College, UK, Fabrizio Gagliardi, ACM Europe chair, Dr Srinivas Padmanabhuni, ACM India Chair, Dr Sheila Anand (ACM-W India Chair), Prof K E Raman, Acting Director of BITS Pilani Goa Campus and Shri Chandrashekar Sahasrabudhe, CEO, ACM India. The morning was made more exciting by the announcement of the “Best Dissertation award” to Rijurekha Sen from IIT Bombay for her work on “Different Sensing Modalities for Traffic monitoring in Developing Regions”. Prof. Kathy Yelick from University of California, Berkeley delivered a keynote on “Antisocial Parallelism: Avoiding, Hiding and Managing Communication” to an enraptured audience.

The afternoon session was kicked off by a keynote address by Prof. John Hopcroft, winner of the 1986 A M Turing prize. His address on the “Future of Computer Science” was very relevant and interesting to the large student population.

Prof. Susan Rodger from Duke University capped the evening by her talk on “Computer Science Concepts Come Alive”.

On Day 3, ACM India was proud to launch the Special Interest Group for Computer Science Education (SIGCSE). It was a privilege to have the global SIGCSE champion Prof. Susan Rodgers with us for this. Prof. Madhavan Mukund of CMI Chennai chaired a panel discussion on “Overcoming challenges within the university system” – a much needed and hotly debated topic.

The local organizing committee including members from ACM Goa Chapter, faculty members and student volunteers from Goa University and BITS Pilani Goa campus and ACM members from Persistent Systems, Verna worked tirelessly to make this event a successful and memorable one. The event was sponsored by Oracle Academy, Google, TCS, Microsoft and Persistent.

The ACM-W India Executive Committee with Susan Rogers.

Announcements

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.

Welcome from the ACM-W Chair

Welcome to the January 2015 issue of ACM-W Connections. It has been a year since we first introduced Connections and I want to once again think the wonderful volunteers who make it happen every month: Melanie Wu and Ileane O’Leary who put together each issue; Katie Siek and Sarah Loos who handle the longer research pieces; and representatives from each of our project areas who contribute updates.

I think everyone was busy celebrating holidays and the New Year, so our current issue is a bit smaller than usual, but still informative. We have updates from Europe, from Chapters and Celebrations, and research summaries from two of the students who were prize winners at the ACM Student Research Competition at the 2014 Grace Hopper Conference.

Let us know about exciting activities happening in your area that support women in computing! Best for 2015!

~Valerie Barr, ACM-W Chair

Articles of Interest

In this special issue of Research Spotlights, we highlight two of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2014 ACM Student Research Competition awardees:

• “Eve eat dust mop”: Data-driven measure of Child Language Development with Simple Syntactic Templates, by Shannon Lubetich, a senior at Pomona College.
• Using Escape Analysis to Speed Up Dynamic Race Detection, by Emma Harrington, a senior at Williams College.

Read their award winning research here .

News From ACM-W Chapters

As the new semester begins, it is time to plan ACM-W Chapter events. Here’s a link to our booklet of “101 Ideas for ACM-W Chapters’ [events]:”

Share your own ideas with us by posting on the Facebook page, “ACM-W Chapters.” Consider working with Chapters or other Women-in-Computing groups at schools that are close to your campus. My own chapter will be collaborating with Indiana University Bloomington, where we will be attending a luncheon and program.

News from ACM-W Celebrations – A Look Ahead into the New Year

As we start of the second half of the 2014-2015 academic year, there is much to be excited about for the Celebrations project. There are eight events in the planning stages that will occur between now and May including MinneWiC (Upper Midwest), OCWiC (Ohio), CAPWiC (Northern Virginia), INWiC (Indiana), ArabWiC (Abu Dhabi), MICWiC (Michigan), CCWiC-Cuba, KYCC-WiC (Kentucky Community Colleges), and NYCWiC (New York). This is the inaugural event for both the Cuban and Arab Celebrations and we are pleased to see continued growth of the international reach of the Celebrations project. Collectively these events anticipate nearly 1000 attendees! Be sure to continue to read this newsletter as well as ACM MemberNet for monthly reports on highlighted conferences.

We are continuing to work on improvements and expanded resources for the Celebrations web site. Before the start of the 2015-2016 academic year, conference coordinators will be able to make post-Celebration reports online, including the uploading of photos. This feature will enhance our ability to showcase conferences on our web site and build an historical archive of events.

Planning for 2015-2016 events has already begun. I encourage all coordinators who are planning Celebrations for next fall or spring to email me (jltims@bw.edu) and I will be in touch soon to give you access to our web site and begin collecting information about your events.

As always, I welcome any suggestions for how we might better support the Celebrations project. Feel free to email at any time with your ideas.

News From ACM-W Europe

Papers, Workshops and Panel proposals due on Jan 25 2015.

There is still time to submit your work for womENcourage 2015 (womencourage.acm.org). There will be multiple tracks, workshops, and panels during the 2.5 day celebration of women in computing.

Check out the website and social media pages to stay up-to-date on all the details of womENcourage celebrations.

womENcourage 2015, the ACM-W Europe Celebration of Women in Computing, is supported by INRIA and Google (Diamond), Bloomberg and Cisco (Platinum), and Informatics Europe and Microsoft Research(Silver). Support is used to help students studying in Europe to attend the celebration.

Please pass this on to your friends, students, colleagues and your company and encourage them to contribute!

News From ACM-W India

The ACM/ACM-W India Annual event for the year 2015 will be held at Birla Institute of Technology Pilani, K K Birla Goa Campus, from 5–7 Feb 2015. This annual flagship event is organized to discuss trends in science and technology, and to celebrate ACM’s spirit and India’s accomplishments in computing. This event is attended by ACM Turing Award winners, ACM Office Bearers, researchers and IT professionals. The past events have witnessed keynote speeches by Tony Hoare (Turing Award 1980), Raj Reddy (Turing Award 1994), Barbara Lisskov (Turing Award 2008), Charles Thacker (Turing Award 2009), Eric Brewer (Infosys ACM Award  2009), Franz Kaashoek (Infosys ACM Award 2010) Ravi Kannan (Knuth Prize 2011), Vinton G Cerf (Turing Award 2004), Joseph Sifakis (Turing Award 2007) and Shafi Goldwasser (Turing Award 2012).

The annual event provides an opportunity for young students and professionals to listen to, interact with, and be motivated by leading men/women professionals across the world. This year the following eminent researchers have been invited for the main event on 6th Feb 2015.

• Prof. John E. Hopcroft
• Dr. Susan Rodger
• Prof. Kathy Yelick

The Ninth edition of Inter-Research-Institute Student Seminar (IRISS) will be co-located with Annual Event and will be held on Feb 5th. This is a forum for research scholars from Indian academic institutes to present their work and there will be poster presentation to discuss their ongoing work.
The SIGCSE inauguration would be held on Feb 7th.

For more info and registration, please visit  our event webpage.

Announcements

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.