News From ACM-W Celebrations

On April 1, 2016, ACM-W, the New York Technology Council (NYTECH) and the CUNY Institute for Software Design and Development (CISDD) presented the First Annual New York City ACM-W Conference for Women Computer Science Students.

The daylong event was hosted by Microsoft at the Microsoft Technology Center in Times Square, New York City, and was sponsored by Microsoft, Google, Verizon, NY Tech Meetup, and LiveCube.com.  Over 150 students, educators, and professionals attended the event.

The four keynote speakers were Heather Shapiro, Technical Evangelist at Microsoft; Bonnie John, Ph.D., Senior Interaction Designer at Bloomberg, L.P.; Judith Spitz, Ph.D., Verizon Executive in Residence at Cornell Tech and former CIO at Verizon; and Margaret Wright, Ph.D., Silver Professor of Computer Science at New York University.

Over 20 moderators and panelists spoke on the topics of career choices, entrepreneurship, and building a network for one’s career.  The day ended with a panel answering questions from attendees.  The consensus among the attendees, organizers, producers, and sponsors was that the event was very successful and planning for next year’s event is already underway.

Celebration season is coming to an end for this year with just one more event on the calendar (Valencia, Spain, in July).   It is time to start planning for 2016/2017.  If you are considering organizating an ACM-W Celebration in your location, please contact Wendy Powley (wendy@cs.queensu.ca) for more information.  We can help you get started!

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