Chair’s Message

Welcome to the December issue of ACM-W Connections. There’s quite a bit to read this month. I’ve collected together a number of announcements into one place. These include information from NCWIT, Codess, Microsoft about the Big Dream Movement, and a link to a video that Vint Cerf provided. We also have updates on ACM-W Europe, ACM-W Chapters, and Grace Hopper India, and an article on the importance to students of faculty mentoring.

Two ACM-W announcements, both exciting in their own way:

ACM-W is seeking volunteers to form our new committee on professional chapters. There is lots of information at http://tiny.cc/65x2qx, and a form where people can express interest. Please share this widely!
ACM-W has been invited by Google to be their partner for a pilot project called IgniteCS. The idea is to foster mentoring of middle and high school students by college students. U.S.-based ACM-W student chapters can apply to be part of this project (there’s financial support!).

Finally, as a follow-up to my comments in November about “The Imitation Game”, the new film about Alan Turing, I received a note from Kelly Gotlieb. For those who do not know Kelly, he is Professor Emeritus in Computer Science at the University of Toronto, and co-founded their computation centre in 1948. He has received many awards and accolades over the years, including being inducted as a Fellow of the ACM. Kelly wrote “You are absolutely right about Turing not being able to build that Manchester machine himself. I visited him in Manchester, April 1952, and talked with him on several occasions as he worked on that computer. It was built by a team in the University headed by Fred Williams. The machine had 10,000 vacuum tubes, and both the computer and air conditioner required full size rooms.” Thanks, Kelly, for sharing that, and for keeping up with ACM-W!

Happy holidays, and best wishes for 2015.

~Valerie Barr, ACM-W Chair