Introducing Stories From Our Greek and Trondheim Student Chapter Buddies!
ACM-W Europe continues with the collaboration of its chapters as the buddy system campaign started by ACM-W. The second chapter buddies of ACM-W Europe happened between two professional chapters which are Trondheim ACM-W and The Greek ACM-W.
The Greek ACM-W Professional Chapter has been established in 2018 with the same vision of fostering gender mainstreaming, as well as enhancing and advocating gender balance in computer-related scientific fields and professional sectors in Greece.
The Trondheim Chapter of the ACM-W was established in 2020 with the same vision of The Greek ACM-W Professional Chapter. The chapter runs by Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) Trondheim.
Two chapters had their first physical meeting at Trondheim during the 10th ACM Celebration of Women in Computing womENcourageTM . Maria Roussou and Anna Szlavi, the representatives of ACM-W Greece and ACM-W Trondheim (respectively) met to exchange ideas and discuss further collaboration. The womENcourage conference in Norway marks the first instance of collaboration as buddies, as Athena Vakali from ACM-W Greece was one of the invited keynote speakers of the event hosted by ACM-W Trondheim. For 2024 the buddies are planning to make further steps to strengthen their connection, possibly through a workshop at the 6th Summit on Gender Equality in Computing to take place in Cyprus.
Are you an ACM-W Chapter in collaboration with another ACM/ACM-W chapter? We love to hear from you! And if you don’t have a collaborator, partner, or a buddy, it’s time to find one! ACM-W has started a new campaign in December 2022 and is encouraging all ACM-W chapters to partner with other ACM-W chapters from the same/different state, country, or region to become a Buddy. Your partnerships can be created to achieve some common goal, be it Academic, Social, Professional or Service. We invite you to tell us how, as ACM-W chapter buddies, you work towards a common goal and provide a shared experience for your diverse community members. To be part of this campaign, you can work with local, country, regional or global buddies. See our December 2022 post for more information.