News From ACM-W India
Report of Regional Celebration of Women in Computing, East and North-East” 2 – 3 November 2015 at IIT Guwahati
ACM-W India “Regional Celebration of Women in Computing, East and North-East” was organized and hosted by Department of CSE, IIT Guwahati. This event provided a forum for the lady researchers and faculty members in the region to showcase their work in the form of posters and also get exposure to recent trends in industry and academia. The event had talks delivered by eminent lady academicians, researchers and industry leaders. During the two day event participants got to interact with eminent
personalities and had the opportunity to know what is happening in academic and how the research outcomes can finally get converted to industry deliverables. The inaugural function was attended by:
- Prof. Gautam Biswas, Director, IIT Guwahati
- Prof. Ravi Mokashi Punekar, Dean Alumni Affairs and External Relations, IIT Guwahati
- Dr. Valentina Salapura, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
- Ms Kumud Srinivasan, President Intel India
- Prof. Susmita Sur-Kolay, ISI Kolkata
- Prof. Dipanwita Roy Choudhuri, IIT Kharagpur
- Prof. Sheila Anand, ACM-W India Chair
- Prof. Diganta Goswami, Head, Dept. of CSE, IIT Guwahati
The key organisers of the event, Dr. Hemangee K. Kapoor and Prof. Sukumar Nandi gave an overview of the conference and Prof. Sheila Anand welcomed the guests and delegates to the ACM-W Celebration.
Ms. Kumud Srinivasan spoke about the “Accelerating Transformation in Today’s Digital World”. She compared industry trends in India and abroad. She motivated the participant ladies by advising them to ask the question “Why?” first and that the “How” and “What” will follow. Dr. Valentina gave an excellent talk on various cloud computing methodologies and virtualisation techniques.
Prof. Susmita gave a talk on the challenges in synthesizing quantum computers. The other talks were in the area of authenticated encryption, Big-Text and Big-Data, Use of thermography to detect breast cancer, Bio-computing and on the data and cloud setup at IISc SERC. Rowena Robinson, Professor of sociology gave an energetic talk on “Girls who play with fire? Women in computing and on the Internet in India”. There was good interaction from the participants and heated discussions on social and family restrictions faced by women in technology. There was also debate on whether it was required to have reservation for girls in higher education institutions.
A panel discussion was held on the theme “On Choosing Career Path: Academics, IT, Research and Entrepreneurship”. The panelists were Dr. Lakshmi, IISc Bangalore, Dr. Valentina, Arati Dixit, University of Pune, Prof. Susmita and Prof. Dipanwita. The discussion, moderated by Arati, focused on the panelists’ careers, how they achieved their goals and the challenges they faced in their respective fields.
Another big attraction for the participants was the poster session. The posters were evaluated by faculty from the department of CSE, IITG and three best posters were recognised by giving a certificate and cash prize. Free ACM membership was offered to all the registered student
The event had 77 registered participants out of which 57 lady participants were from around 12 universities from the North-East. There were 25 poster submissions. The organisers are very thankful to the generous support given by the sponsors: Google, Xerox research India and Tata Consultancy Services.