vGHCI Tracks

vGHCI Tracks

vGHCI offers a wide-range of topics, sessions and formats for every technical woman. Speakers will participate in lightning talks, presentations, panels, workshops, or poster sessions. Thank you to our Leadership and Program Committee.

Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Data Science  |  Cloud Computing
Design for Digital Experiences  |  Emerging Technologies and Industry Trends
Hardware, Internet of Things, and Edge  |  Original Research  | Open Source  |  Posters
Scholarships  |  Security and Privacy  |  Transform Service Operations
Technology Driving Social Impact  |  Tech Workshops

 

Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning(ML), and Data Science

Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Data Science have become the leading, fastest growing and exciting areas in Tech.  This track provides a platform for researchers and practitioners in these areas to present and discuss the latest trends, research outcomes, novel tools, practical experiences, and technical challenges. This year, we will focus on current and thematic topics with an aim of creating a high-quality track focused on a few domains. Towards this, we invite high quality submissions in the following areas. However, topics are not limited to the list below and we welcome any impactful work in the domain:

Big Data

• Processing Dark Data, Modelling over encrypted data, Data Veracity and Quality
• Testing Fidelity of Dataset, Data Scarcity

Fundamentals

• Multi-agent systems; Optimization strategies and algorithms; Adversarial learning
• Large scale learning; PU (Positive-Unlabeled) learning; One-class classification; Embeddings over Non-Euclidean space

Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency

• Explainability, Ethical and Transparent AI, Policy for AI; Algorithmic bias and discrimination; Fair allocation; Accountable frameworks; Democratization of AI; Gender – Racial bias in ML models

Accessibility and User Experience

• Education; People with disabilities; Rural users; Elderly users; Virtual and augmented reality

Communication

• Multi-modal analytics
• Language localization
• Less resourced languages/code-mixing
• Real time video analysis
• Hate speech detection
• Mental health or Affect modelling

Practical Problem Solving in Domains

• Security; Healthcare; Finance; Defense; Energy; Climate; Transport; Agriculture
• Epidemic modelling
• Agent based simulation of Disaster

Convergence with Others

• Cognitive Science, (BCI) Brain-Computer Interface, Quantum computing; Edge computing; AI enabled chips; Cybersecurity; Blockchain; Robotics and perception; Distributed architectures for large data

 

Cloud Computing

Cloud is the new growth engine for business. The development standards for both enterprise and consumer applications is shifting from cloud-enabled to cloud-native. Cloud native management helps businesses to handle infrastructure-agnostic solutions. In this era of cloud native developments, we seek submissions exploring the latest technology trends & techniques, pioneering practices, tools, research driving digital disruption and innovation in these following (but not limited to) topics:

• Containers and Virtualization
• Serverless computing, micro-services
• ServiceMesh, Cloud Federation & Service Composition
• Cloud patterns and anti-patterns
• Cloud Cost Optimization and Cloud Governance
• Cloud Infrastructure Management and Operations
• Trusted Cloud environments
• Cloud Storage systems
• High performance systems and resilient computing
• Energy efficient Cloud computing
• Large Scale, Social & Mobile Cloud Applications
• Multi-Cloud, Hybrid Cloud, Private Cloud, Public Cloud, Cloud to Edge
• Cloud and distributed data analysis

Design for Digital Experiences

In today’s business landscape, design has gained traction as a key factor for success. Since commoditization of technology has lowered barriers to competition, design has become a bottom-line investment because of its ability to help brands differentiate themselves and become more competitive.

Digital design has a rapidly evolving canvas; from devices, to screens, and now, conversations (rather than swipes, taps or clicks) and virtual reality. As machines are trained to adapt and provide more human-like experiences, the paradigms of design in the new digital world are rapidly evolving.   In this track, we are accepting submissions that discuss the latest trends, pioneering tools and procedures, practical experiences, and technical challenges on a wide range of topics mentioned below.

Broad categories for submission in this track include:

• Human Centered Design (HCD): Product Design Perspectives keeping Human at the centre, with case studies, especially around Five tenets of HCD, HCD for AR/VR, from large distributed systems to IOT domain as well.
• User Experience and Interface: Emerging technologies in UX, UX for AI, wearables, multiple device experiences, frameless experiences, Emotional design and Voice User Interfaces. This could also include new ways of access calls for simplified authentication.
• Design Principles and Methods: Interaction Design, Information Architecture and Navigations, SEO, voice first Design/Data driven design but not limited to Digital product ecosystem, and globalization for building persuasive systems
• Product Information: Recent trends are pointing towards more voice based and gesture based interactive help

It will help if you give us a compelling story to share with the vGHCI community or any deep insights from your hands-on design practice.

Emerging Technologies and Industry Trends

Could technology have predicted the outbreak of Covid-19? Does industry drive technology or does technology disrupt industries? Will hyper-space travel happen in your lifetime? If these and similarly intriguing, futuristic questions prey on your mind – you are one of those technologists whose insights, views, and opinions is what this track is all about. This track provides a forum to highlight such emerging trends across Technology and Industry.  We are looking for submissions in the topics mentioned, but not limited to the ones listed below:

• Latest industry trends in travel, hospitality, entertainment, sports, healthcare etc.
• Renewable energy and new-age housing driven by advances in computing
• Innovation that encompasses different scientific streams
• Computational linguistics and data fiduciary
• Data journalism and quantum technologies
• Distributed Ledgers and virtual reality

Your submission should have adequate insight and depth on the following aspects of the technology solution you have chosen:

• Your rationale for choosing this topic.
• The underlying technology.
• The infrastructure underpinning the technology.
• The impact of the solution provided by the technology – in terms of sustainability as well as taking humanity to the next frontier.
• The challenges, if any, that the technology needs to overcome to become scalable.

Hardware, Internet of Things, and Edge

In this age of digital transformation, IoT, Hardware, and Edge Computing spearhead the industry disruption and create new opportunities. IoT drives widespread connectivity and generates huge volumes of data, creating a need for specialized Hardware for storage and processing of data at the edge. Edge computing delivers the decentralized complement to today’s hyperscale cloud and legacy data centers.

In this track we look forward to good quality submissions, innovations, case studies related to, but not limited only to the topics listed below:

Hardware

• Development methodologies
• Advances in biomedical field transforming medical map
• Making innovative projects with open source HW
• Digital Manufacturing/3D Printing innovations
• GPUs and TPUs

IoT

• IoT connectivity and networking
• IoT applications and services
• IoT-enabled innovation and entrepreneurship

Use Cases

• Digital twins
• Smart cities
• Advance wearables
• IoT use cases predictive maintenance; Smart metering; Asset tracking; Connected vehicles; Fleet management (Transportation); Energy Sector; Education (STEM); HMI (Human Machine Interaction) in manufacturing, home automation, etc.
• Smart dust
• Blockchain based security for IoT
• Living IoT
• Wearable IoT and deep learning

Edge 

• Design of edge intelligence
• Cost and performance-efficient edge analytics
• Edge computation offloading
• Low power modes
• Implementations of IoT platforms
• Distributed analytics architecture
• Distributed stream computing platforms
• Cloud-fog-mist interoperability

Original Research (AnitaB.org India in collaboration with IEEE Women in Engineering (WiE))

IEEE Conference ID: 50508

The Original Research track at vGHCI aims to provide a platform for researchers, academicians, professional, practitioners, and students to impart and share knowledge in the form of original, high quality empirical and theoretical research papers, case studies, academic, or scholarly articles and extended versions of previously published papers in conferences.

Papers describing original work are invited in one of the following sub-tracks:

• Sub Track 1: Networks
• Sub Track 2: Cyber Security
• Sub Track 3: Data Science
• Sub Track 4: Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

We are curious to hear your original idea and the research processes, strategies, design, methods, and improvisations implemented and invite you to share your experience with us.

Check out GHCI 19 papers published in IEEE Xplore Digital Library, and on Facebook.

Open Source

Open source has become mainstream with the rapid adoption of open source business-models by the market. Many big companies are embracing enterprise grade open source software to achieve portability and cost reduction. Startups are also building business models around open source software. The open source community guides the adoption of technology in the open source ecosystem. In this track, we are keen to hear your learnings and insights on using, maintaining, or developing open source.

Submissions are encouraged from start-ups to enterprises to individual committers to communities in the following topics:

• Developing to open source – Built for your need and then open source
• Open source communities, committers, and contributors – Share your processes, do’s and don’ts, challenges, or how it all works
• Business model built around open source – End-to-end product built on open source, saving revenues
• Challenging problems solved by open source in AI, machine learning, deep learning, distributed computing, big data, or any other emerging technology areas
• Impact of open source in software quality, cost of building and maintaining
• How is code security treated in open source world – Pros and cons with real time examples
• Licensing in the open source world – Any challenges
• Anything else – We are open to learn more

Posters

The goal of the poster session is to provide an opportunity for an informal discussion of one’s research with Celebration attendees. It is an excellent way to convey ideas and results not yet developed into a full paper. You may also submit work that has already been accepted at other conferences.

Topics allowed
Poster topics can be any technical ideas or concepts from the technology and computing fields.

Who can submit? 
Submissions are encouraged from women students pursuing their bachelor’s, master’s, or doctoral degrees in Science, Computer Science and Engineering. Industry professionals, researchers, and faculty members (women) are also welcome to submit a poster submission.

How should the poster proposal be formatted? 
Submissions should be in the form of a proposal (an abstract of up to two pages).

Who can present at vGHCI? 
Only one author of each accepted proposal is eligible to present their idea at vGHCI. The presentation format during the actual session will be in the form of a poster display that conveys the idea in their initial proposal. Multiple individuals cannot present the same poster. The author presenting at vGHCI will be given a complimentary registration pass to present their work at the Poster Session. Those who would like to take advantage of the special grant are to apply for the Student Scholarships, the applications for which will open shortly.

The deadline to make a Poster submission is June 14, 2020.

Poster submissions are currently closed.

Scholarships

Virtual Grace Hopper Celebration India (GHCI) is a wonderful opportunity for women students to start a great career in technology. This could be your chance to learn, network, and get inspired at the largest gathering of women technologists in Asia!

We are offering vGHCI Student Scholarships for the Celebration to be held virtually. vGHCI Student Scholarships will be awarded to deserving women students from computing, engineering, and IT backgrounds. The scholarship applicant must belong to one of the below categories:

• An undergraduate student who is enrolled and in the final year of their degree course during the month of October 2020. Students who graduate before October 2020 are not eligible.
• A post graduate student pursuing their master’s degree in computing or a technical area.
• A doctorate student in computing or a technical area.
  Please note: The student (undergraduate, graduate, and doctorate) applicant must be from a technical background and pursuing a full-time degree.

Benefits of the vGHCI Student Scholarship

• The Scholarship gives the recipient the opportunity to attend vGHCI and includes the full registration fee and meals. For outstation students who do not reside in Bangalore, travel (by train, bus, or air) will be reimbursed up to a maximum of Rs. 3,000 and accommodation arrangements will also be made during vGHCI.
• Scholarship recipients get access to the vGHCI Career Fair (for women in technology only). Students can explore internships as well as full-time job opportunities with global technology organizations.

Scholarship recipients should submit their resume to the GHCI Resume Database, which is viewed by the GHCI Sponsor organizations. The GHCI Resume Database is open until April 2021. 

How to Apply:

• Submit the scholarship application form on the Linklings tool.
• The deadline to submit a scholarship application is June 14, 2020.
• Acceptance/non-acceptance decisions of your scholarship application will be shared in August 2020.

Students who have received the GHCI Student Scholarship in past years, are not eligible to apply again this year. For more information, email us at  IndiaQueries@AnitaB.org.

Applications are currently closed.

Security and Privacy

Today security and privacy are the essential building blocks for any business solution. When solutions become complex involving multiple systems with varied technologies, the need for a security and privacy driven architecture for effective and compliant handling of data becomes a mandate. This track invites engineers and researchers to share the latest technology trends, techniques, pioneering practices, tools, learnings and challenges in the field of security and privacy. We look for submissions in all areas related to security and privacy, including but not limited to:

• Privacy-by-design methodologies, technologies, toolkits, and frameworks
• Technologies to support users’ privacy rights
• Privacy preserving analytics and machine learning
• Data anonymization and quantification of privacy leaks
• Anonymity networks and peer-to-peer communication
• Encrypted data processing
• Application-auditing methodologies to assure transparency, privacy and compliance
• Adaptive Security Architecture
• Threat Modelling, Identity Access Management, Critical Infrastructure
• Cryptographic Algorithms and Protocols
• GDPR, Government Regulations and Compliance for Security
• Security as a service
• Tools and techniques for threat detection, Intrusion, anomaly detection, privacy violations.
• Connected things, Edge, 5G and Security.

Transform Service Operations

The purpose of this track is to encourage submissions related to technical automation, transformation, and/or innovation in Technology Services, People, and Business Operations.

The role of technology in services and operations has immense potential. Technology can transform services to create value in completely new ways. For many companies, service automation/innovation is the key to differentiating themselves from competitors and integrating their businesses with suppliers, regulators, customers, and end users. Advances in information technology have helped in rapid scaling of service automation/innovations in health, education, government, finance, hospitality, retail, communications, telecom, transportation, energy, utilities, and even in advanced agricultural and manufacturing systems viewed as socio-technical systems.

We are looking for innovations in automating decisions during a business process resulting in reduced human engagement. Hyperautomation moves automation up a level, adding more intelligence to automation by using a broader set of tools so that previously un-automatable tasks could be automated. Use cases could include but not limited to precision agriculture using AI, digitization, employee analytics, transformation in talent acquisition, construction safety, Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) Management with AI, etc.

Submissions can be made in the following areas:

Services

• Sourcing, procurement, vendor management (e.g.: Assigning jobs, Evaluating performance)
• Work force/Talent management/HR (e.g.: Online auto screening process)
• Supply chain management (e.g.: Design for product serviceability)

Operations

• Business Operations (e.g.:  Social media management; Automated auditing process; Customer experience processes, digitization of operations)
• Technology operations
• Data and ML ops
• Hyper automation including RPA
• Security and risk management
• Innovation of content, platform, and co-creation

Technology Driving Social Impact

In today’s world, technology-based solutions focusing on alleviation of societal problems are able to deliver life-changing outcomes for individuals and communities. Critical problems like poverty eradication, access to education, providing good sanitation, affordable housing, tackling climatic change, and depletion of natural resources can be solved using technological advancements.

We look forward to submissions aligned with United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which provide the blueprint for dignity, peace and prosperity for people and the planet.

We invite submissions accompanied by a short video describing the problem statement with its tech solution and its scale of impact for society. The topics may include applications of technology for social innovation in the areas listed below, but not limited to:

• Agriculture and allied
• Behavioral science
• Civics
• Data and digital
• Education
• Energy
• Environment
• Financial inclusion
• Gender equality
• Healthcare
• Housing
• Inclusive development
• Livelihoods
• Media
• Services
• Sports
• Water and sanitation

We request you to highlight the status of your live projects and if open source software is used in the solution.

Tech Pathways

AnitaB.org India has launched an exclusive new program Tech Pathways to provide an end-to-end facilitation for women technologists seeking career path change at any point in their career into the most happening world of technology in Artificial Intelligence, Data Sciences, and Machine Learning.

If you are a woman technologist who is returning to work after a gap or currently working and would like to change your career into the latest technologies, this program is designed for you.

This program:

• helps to understand what each role means/entails and what could be possible career progression options
• helps you to pick and choose relevant content to have a streamlined technical growth
• provides guidance and connection of where to apply and how to apply (utilizing Anita B’s network to streamline and share opportunities), after completing the prescribed technical courses.

This is a six-week program with prescriptive courses, guidance, and the opportunity to practice hands-on skills to help groom yourself for your career goal as well as helps you to get connected with potential employers.

True to the philosophy of AnitaB.org and GHCI conference, you will also get mentored, guided, and supported by experienced, skilled experts from the industry.

Why participate?

This opportunity provides you the technical skills and exposure needed to work in the fields of Data Sciences and Machine Learning. Besides mentoring and training, you will also get visibility leading to employment opportunities.

At the end of the program, the top performers will get to present their work in GHCI 20-21.

The Tech Pathways program offers two different career paths for women:

– Machine Learning (ML)/data engineer

Data Engineers are the data professionals who prepare the “big data” infrastructure to be analyzed by Data Scientists. They are software engineers who design, build, integrate data from various resources, and manage big data.

Skills: Hadoop, MapReduce, Hive, Pig, Data streaming, NoSQL, SQL, programming

– ML/AI Product Manager

AI Product Management is focused on using AI, Deep Learning and/or Machine Learning to enhance, improve, create and shape products. AI Product Management (APM) is certainly a recent role.

Opportunities: GoogleSearch/ Photos / Translate, Voice assistant, User Recommendations in Youtube / online search / B2C, Stitch Fix. Nest, Autopilot (Tesla), Face recognition etc.

 Eligibility Criteria

• This program is exclusive for women technologist having 5 or more years of relevant work experience
• Women software technologies who want to switch their careers into areas of new technology
• Women technologists who are on a career break of 2 years or more, and are looking to return to mainstream work in newer areas
• Women technologists that are currently working as a software developer/tester/product manager/business analyst/project manager

 Selection Criteria

• The applications would be selected by a set of experienced committee members
• Criteria for selection includes applicant profile, years of work experience, future career aspirations, and available support network
• Due to limited seats, the top 10 candidates with the highest scores would be shortlisted

Note
• The program committee reserves the right to request proof of eligibility criteria
• Any misrepresentation of facts will lead to automatic disqualification from the program.

Tech Workshops

Tech Workshops is an exclusive track designed to offer workshops across varied technology areas. The purpose of the workshops is to provide participants with hands-on opportunities to learn and experience active and emerging topics of Technology.

This track invites submissions in the space of novel technical innovations, engineering solutions, architectural advocacy ideas, and concepts spanned across technical tracks but not limited to:

• Artificial intelligence; Data and analytics
• Emerging technologies; Industry trends
• Design and product evolution
• Techno social innovations
• Agile and DevOps
• HPC, Cloud, and security
• Hardware and IoT
• Augmented reality/Virtual reality
• Block chain/ML/Quantum computing

We strongly encourage the workshop organizers to make their workshops highly interactive, and include discussions/Q&A to facilitate a lively exchange of ideas among the attendees. Selected workshop teams are responsible for bringing in the required material for a hands-on experience for the participants.

Duration of the workshop is around 60- 90 minutes depending upon the content. Audience capacity is around 100 – 125.

Give us a compelling story to share with the vGHCI community – deep insights from hands-on practice. Along with your submission, share a 2-minute video telling what vGHCI participants can gain from your story. We love to see you in addition to reading your proposal.