News From ACM-W Celebrations
– letter from Wendy Powley, ACM-W Celebration Chair
I would like to thank Valerie and Jodi for their warm welcome in the August newsletter. I am delighted to be taking on the role as Chair of the Celebrations project, an initiative that I am very passionate and excited about.
In 2010, my friend Kelly Lyons informed me of the ACM-W’s initiative to launch Celebration events to provide young women with the inspiration and experience that comes from attending a conference filled with enthusiastic, like-minded women. She e-introduced me to Gloria Childress Townsend and Elaine Weyuker who were heading up the project at the time. I downloaded Gloria’s One Hundred One Ideas for Small Regional Celebrations of Women in Computing guide, gathered some keen students from our School, and got to work on the first Ontario Celebration of Women in Computing (ONCWIC) event. This was completely out of character for me. It was risky and scary. Where would the funding come from? I had no industry connections. I had never been involved in large-scale fund-raising. I worried that no one would come to the conference. The one thing that kept me focused and determined was Gloria’s comment “Organizing a Celebration event was the single most rewarding thing I have done in my life”.
The first event was a huge success and since then ONCWIC has been organized by four different universities across Ontario. This year we are extremely excited to be launching the first Canadian Celebration of Women in Computing (CAN-CWiC). This conference represents a merging of three Canadian Celebrations: the Ontario Celebration of Women in Computing, the Pacific Northwest Celebration of Women in Computing, and the Atlantic Canada Celebration of Women in Computing.
There are many Celebrations planned for the 2015/2016 year with at least a dozen events planned in areas across the US, two events in India, and Celebrations in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Europe. Check out the ACM-W Celebrations page to find an event near you!
If you are interested in organizing an event, I would be happy to talk with you about what it entails. Seed funding is available for all events from ACM-W and Microsoft Research, and many supports are in place to assist with planning and execution of events.
Perhaps you are not quite ready to organize your own Celebration yet, but you would like to help out in some way with the Celebrations project? We are looking for new members to join the Celebrations committee. The workload is light, but your help would really be appreciated.
I can be reached by email at wendy@cs.queensu.ca. I look forward to getting to know all the Celebration organizers over the coming months and working with you to make your Celebration a huge success. And, for the record, I agree with Gloria that organizing a Celebration was the single most rewarding thing I have done in my life. Try it! When you see the smiles on the faces of your young attendees, you are sure to agree with us.