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Month: August 2015

GHC15: A Past, Present and Future Journey!

This year GHC will be awesome!!!Oh, ok. Let me back up a bit. Did I say 12K women? Have I mentioned the sessions? Have you heard that it’s “Our time to lead!”?What happened? First, some background information about why I am really excited. My first GHC…

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A Past, Present and Future Journey for GHC 15!

This year GHC will be awesome!!!Oh, ok. Let me back up a bit. Did I say 12K women? Have I mentioned the sessions? Have you heard that it’s “Our time to lead!”?What happened? First, some background information about why I am really excited. My first GHC…

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Susan Wojcicki Keynotes GHC 2015 with Moira Forbes

YouTube CEO Susan Wojckiki will deliver a keynote at this year’s Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC). She will be introduced by journalist Moira Forbes, who will join Susan after her keynote speech for an onstage conversation.

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GHC15: A Whole New Box!

At my company, we have a metaphor: life is a series of boxes. You start off in a box, right at the bottom. As you learn and grow, your box fills with your knowledge and accomplishments and pushes you up until you’re at the top of your box. Then…you climb out of your now full box. Straight into another box. Right at the bottom. And the process begins again.

This year will be my third going to the Grace Hopper Celebration. Each year, I have gone in a different capacity and this one is no different! Every year, GHC helps me expand my knowledge, grow, and push myself into a new box.

The first year I attended, I was just starting my Masters in Computer Science. A (somewhat) young student, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I was so excited as I had never attended any conference aimed at women in computing, let alone one of this magnitude! I remember arriving and being absolutely flabbergasted that so many people could fit in one conference centre—and 90% of them were women! What an empowering moment!

I scheduled everything. I went to panels aimed at new grad students—my newest box—attempting to prepare us for the completely new world of grant applications, research, publishing, and conference talks that awaited us. I learned tips and tricks that later helped me both in my classes and my research (although no conference talks yet!). I also indulged in several of the security-related talks, my main area of interest.

I attended the conference with several other students from my school. It was a really inspiring and diverse group of girls. This experience alone was completely disjoint from any other conference I had been to. We were able to laugh, bond, and inspire each other with talks from the smallest things (like as how haggard we felt and looked after travelling) to deep conversations (such as illnesses in our family and the forces that had driven our passions to STEM). This group of girls really made the GHC experience for me. They, along with so many of the speakers I listened to and new connections I made, inspired me in a way no other conference ever had and had me raring to go back the next year!

For my second year, I was lucky enough to attend with my current company, Shopify. I had just finished all my classes and had signed a full-time contract with Shopify so I could work whilst I finished my thesis. I went this year, not as a student, but as a representative of my company. It was a complete contrast to my previous experience at GHC.

I attended few panels, but the ones I did check out were aimed at women just starting out in their careers. The panels covered a range of topics including how to discuss difficult topics at work, how to ask for/negotiate contracts and raises, and how to really get the most out of your experiences at your company without being overlooked.

While all the talks were inspiring to me, they couldn’t come close to my experience taking part in the career fair. For those of you who haven’t previously attended GHC, let me tell you that this career fair is on an entirely different level. It is the single largest job fair I have ever seen, and the fair itself is bigger than some of the Comic-Cons I have attended! It was a very humbling experience to see how small both my company and I are in relation to the vastness of the technology field as a whole.

I stood at Shopify’s booth for three days talking to potential candidates ranging in age and experience, from young undergrads to women who had been working in tech for over 20 years and were looking for a change. Each of these women had a story to tell and something to teach. Being able to talk one-on-one with so many inspirational women was phenomenal. Hearing their about their struggles and triumphs and the lessons they had learned really showed me how I could become a better employee, programmer, and person. On top of that, I got to get to know some of the women from my company so much better through this trip, which was truly wonderful. Though this was with a different group, the bonding, laughter, and memories were of the same kind as I got to experience last year. This, as well, was an entirely different box for me. I had always been shy and kept to myself, never being the one to start a conversation. But this pushed me to my limits until I was smiling and chatting with anyone and everyone in sight, and I couldn’t have been happier.

And now, for my third year, I am actually able to help organize this amazing conference. Never in a million years would I have thought I would be doing something like this, but I’m so happy to be able to help make this conference a reality for another year in the hopes that it will inspire other women as it has me. Already, just being able to work with the rest of the members of the Grace Hopper Communities Committee has been wonderful. They are such a diverse, intelligent, and kind group of women that have already driven me to new heights, and once again into a new box.

What I wanted to highlight most in this blog post is the sheer diversity of GHC. It really is suited for everyone at any point in their career, whether they are in academia or industry. The conference was completely different for me each time I attended, as my role had changed. As I have grown, so have my GHC experiences grown with me. GHC allows itself to be a deeply personalized experience for everyone, letting each attendee choose what they want to attend and focus on, so that we can all grow, develop, and learn as much as possible.

I know that this year will be no different in that regard, though I know that it will be a complete 180 in terms of what I do and learn once again.  I can’t wait to see what’s in store! See you all there!

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    Manuela Veloso and Clara Shih to Speak at GHC 2015

    Palo Alto, Calif., August 10, 2015: AnitaB.org, a non-profit organization focused on the advancement of women in computing, announces two distinguished technical women, Manuela Veloso and Clara Shih, as speakers at this year’s Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC). “We’re delighted to have Manuela and Clara speak at this year’s Grace Hopper Celebration. They are both examples…

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    Calling all women techies (students and professionals) from Bangalore!

    As a committee member of Grace Hopper for India I feel it is my duty to inform you all about the great opportunity to join Tech for Good 2015, the exclusive women-only Hackathon for students and industry professionals from computing and technology … Continue reading

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    #GHC15 Resume Database

    So the GHC Resume Database has been open for a while now so why haven’t you tossed your resume in it already?
    I never looked at uploading my resume to the GHC database as yet another thing on my ever-growing-Ihavetodowhatagain-list.
    It was always…

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    Elizabeth Ames

    Elizabeth Ames

    Speaker
    Elizabeth is the Senior Vice President of Marketing, Alliances, and Programs at AnitaB.org.

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    Cheryl Ainoa

    Cheryl Ainoa

    Cheryl Ainoa is senior vice president for platform development, where she leads the development of the company’s platforms and core services to enable Intuit’s product development teams to build innovative products and services.

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    Molly Anderson

    Molly Anderson

    Facilitator
    Molly is president of Exponential Talent LLC which helps organizations perform better by tapping into the full motivation of today’s diverse workforce. She co-authored best-seller The Corporate Lattice: Achieving High Performance in the Changing World of Work with Cathy Benko, Vice Chairman, Deloitte LLP.

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