Indo European ACM Celebration of Women in Computing

The first Indo-European ACM Celebration of Women in Computing: A Decade Celebration was virtually held on June 22, 2023.  ACM-W Global Chair Ruth Lennon welcomed the participants with her inspiring speech;  ACM-W India Chair Heena Timani and ACM-W Europe Chair Rukiye Altin, followed by giving an overview of activities carried out in their respective regions.

The event held two panels. In the first panel, ACM-W India Treasurer Rutvi Shah chaired, and the panellists shared their ACM-W chapter experiences. The panellists included ACM Women Trondheim Vice Chair Anna Szlavi, who is also a postdoctoral researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Anna also talked about womENcourageTM, which will be hosted at NTNU in September. Elif Şen, who is ACM Bilkent (Turkey) Chair, talked about her experiences at Bilkent University, Turkey and how an ACM chapter can inspire women in other fields. Dr Geetanjali Kale, who is the Chair of ACM-W Pune Professional Chapter (India), inspired listeners with her words “Collaboration is a key to success” and encouraged all to collaborate more. Shreya Sharma, Chair of the ACM-W chapter at ABESEC (India) and Shagun Kesarwani, Secretary of the ACM-W chapter at ABESEC (India), shared their journey through ACM-W.

The second panel of the event was chaired by Dorota Filipczuk who is ACM-W Europe Vice Chair. The guests on the panel were the founders of both regions. Reyyan Ayfer, founder of ACM-W Europe and Arati Dixit, founder of ACM-W India, told us how the idea of starting regional ACM-W became alive.

We thank them for their selfless work in supporting, celebrating, and advocating globally for the engagement of women in all aspects of the computing field. We are looking forward to many more joint celebrations.

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