Rocky Mountain Celebration of Women in Computing Conference (RMCWiC)
Th eSixth Rocky Mountain Celebration of Women in Computing Conference was held November 1-2, 2018, at the Denver Sheraton West hotel in Lakewood, Colorado. There was an amazing support from 25 academic, industry, and non-profit sponsors, raising $57,500. The conference drew 356 participants from highschool students, teachers, academic and professionals.
The conference kicked off Thursday November 1, 2018, at 3:30p with two workshops, a panel, and three activities. The “Accessible Computer Science Education Workshop” was led by students from the University of Wyoming, the workshop “Creating a Resume that Speaks to the Company You Want!” was led by FAST Enterprises, and the panel “Diverse Pathways to Technology: What Careers in Tech Look Like” hosted a diverse group of women from The Turing School of Software and Design, P2BInvestor, Lockheed Martin, and Amazon. At 4:30p, a second set of workshops were presented – “Intro to Back End Programming”, led by The Turing School of Software & Design, “Pitch Perfect: Crafting an Effective Introduction”, led by the University of Denver, and “Want to Ace Your Tech Interview?” led by Google.
RMCWiC 2018
At 5:30p, the Poster Session, Demos, Networking, and Reception kicked off with 6 student presenters discussing their research, along with the LSG Innovations demo “Shadow Lens Demonstration: Tactical Multi-INT Sensor Fusion”. At 6:30pm, a buffet dinner was served, during which sponsors were recognized and a slide show featuring Notable Women in Computing was presented while students dined.
The evening keynote featured a 20-minute documentary, “The Computers: The Remarkable Story of the ENIAC Programmers”, followed by a virtual Q & A session with the filmmaker, Kathy Kleinman. The day closed with a “Getting Started with FreeBSD” Programming Workshop, at 9:00pm.
Friday November 2nd started promptly at 8:00 am with a Mentoring Breakfast organized by Cathie Olschanowsky with topics that included career paths in government or military, career paths in academia, career paths in industry, work/life balance, choosing the right career path, gender issues in the workplace, what is computing research?, how can undergrads get involved in research?, developing interview skills, Technical Topics: Information Systems, and Technical Topics: Software Engineering.
At 9:00am, a plenary panel, “My Path to Entrepreneurship” featured Four chief executive officers who shared their story – Andrea Guendelman (Bevisible.soy, Wallbreakers) served as moderator, with panelists Carol Carter (GlobalMindED), Amelia Coomber (BB&Co), Toi Massey (The JEKL Foundation for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Mathematics).
Following a short break, panel discussions and workshops resumed at 10:10am with the workshop “Using Design Thinking to balance and bridge CS with your other interests”, led by students and faculty from Colorado State University; the panel “Demystify Your Career” featured Salesforce Employees who shared their personal stories and career journeys, and the workshop “Leading Conversations about Microaggressions, Bias, and Other Nonsense” helped attendees build their capacity to address and respond to bias in their academic environments and to replicate this session within their organizations.
Running in parallel at 10:10am were the Birds of a Feather sessions “Imposter Syndrome”, “Undergraduate Research Challenges for Faculty and Students”, and “Career &Education: When, Where, and Why?”.
Lightning Talks ran before lunch. The lunch keynote began at 12:05pm with a talk entitled “Navigating the Death Valleys to Reach the Meadows and Mountaintops”, by entrepreneur Andrea Guendelman, who shared the real life trials and tribulations of running several startups.
At 1:40pm, the conference resumed with five Graduate Student Talk sessions, a workshop, and six Birds of a Feather sessions. At 3:45pm, the Career Fair and afternoon snacks were served in the City Lights Ballroom, and included 15 companies and six colleges and universities.
The conference closed with the presentation of awards by Elle Boese from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Graduate Student Talk and Poster Winners received a deck of Notable Women in Computing playing cards. Three students earned Honorable Mention and five earned top honors for their Posters and Grad Student Talks. A final raffle was held to give away the remaining books.
If you are interested in organizing a Celebration, please contact Wendy Powley, the Celebrations Chair at wendy@cs.queensu.ca.
