Introducing Black Women in Computing

A special thing happens when bright minds come together. Things work. New relationships are forged. Deals are made. The needle moves. This is the power of community—the power of Systers’ Affinities Communities.

Here at the Black Women in Computing virtual offices, we’re laying the building blocks for what we hope will be the best GHC experience to date! Every day leading up to the 2015 GHC, we’ve been sparking our own imaginations about what is possible this year. From our original founder to our committee members to our newest members, all ideas have been on deck. And it has been that way since the beginning.

BWiC was born at the GHC 2010 Women of Color luncheon entitled, “Building Our Community: Moving Vision into Reality.” With the help of the Anita Borg Institute, the group grew some legs in 2011. We held our official kick-off event for our BWiC online community at the 2011 GHC Birds of a Feather session entitled, “Black Women in Computing: Increasing Numbers Through Networking.”

Since then, we’ve been working towards impacting change by “supporting each other, leveraging our knowledge in the industry and passing it on to others.” Our core goals to increase:

• BWiC Presence
• Recruitment and Retention
• Online Resources
• Support System (National & Local)
• Outreach into black and under-served communities, including Hispanic and Native American communities.

If you haven’t linked up with Black Women in Computing yet, here are a few events where you can get a good feel for the community. You must be a registered conference attendee to attend events on Oct. 14-16, 2015.

• Saturday, October 10, 2015:
• HBCU Tech Inclusion Workshop | 8 a.m.– 6 p.m. | Texas Southern University Science Center @ Eagle and Ennis Streets | Sponsored by Facebook, CMD-IT, Microsoft 
• Find out more at: http://bit.ly/bwic-hbcu-tiw
• Wednesday, October 14, 2015:
• BWiC Reception | 6:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. | Sponsored by Google
• BWiC Community Booths | 5:30 p.m. – 10 p.m. | @ Community Fair
• Thursday, October 15, 2015:
• UWiC Panel: U-turns, Detours and Roadblocks | 10:30 – 11:30 p.m.
• Women of Color Lunch | 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. | Sponsored by Facebook
• UWiC Speed Mentoring Sessions | Session 1| 2:15 p.m. – 3:15 p.m. | Session 2 | 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
• BWiC Community Booths | 10:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. | @ Community Fair
• Friday, October 16, 2015:
• Black Women in Technical Roles Lunch | Keynote: Debora Plunkett, National Security Agency and Speaker: Jennifer Jackson, CapitalOne | 1:00 p.m. – 2:15 p.m.
• UWiC Panel: Bringing Your Whole Self to Work as Underrepresented Women in Computing | 10:30 – 11:30 p.m.
• Saturday, October 17, 2015:
• BWiC Gaming Workshop | 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. | Prairie View A&M University Northwest Campus, 9440 Grant Rd. | Sponsored by Intel

Year-round, you can join our online community on Twitter @BWiComputing and follow our Wordpress at blackwomenincomputing.wordpress.com. For more information on getting involved, email Danielle Cummings (DanielleNCummings at gmail.com).

See you there!