Grace Hopper Bloggers

What a Web We Weave: Enhancing Conferences with an Online Community

2009-10-28T20:37:00.000-07:00

I gave a lightning talk at MidWiC09 on how online communites are used at GHC. Below is my abstract and script.

In 2008, I decided to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC). SInce I had not submitted a BOF, technical paper, or poster during the call for participation, I volunteered to contribute to the online community. THe GHC online community includes blogging, note taking via a wiki, tweeting on Twitter, sharing photos and videos via Flickr and YouTube respectively, and utilizing the social networks of Facebook and LinkedIn. This participation absolutely made my GHC experience, and I returned again in 2009 as one of the YouTube group coordinators. In this Lightning Talk, I will explain how the different online mediums are used and the benefits they provide beyond the conference.

LinkedIn and Facebook allow distribution of information over pre-established networks. More importantly it allows interaction between those in the networks that wouldn't happen if the info was solely sent in an email newsletter distributed via blind carbon copy.

Mediums used before the conference in addition to LinkedIn and Facebook were the GHC Blog, YouTube, and Twitter.

Before the conference, bloggers posted advice on how to make the most of the exhibits and recruiters, on what to pack, on networking. The blog allows for sharing of personal perspective, and bloggers shared why they feel GHC is so important, how GHC has affected their life, and what they hope to get out of the conference. Organizers also blogged to share some of the behind the scenes work done at the conference.

I was a coordinator of the YouTube group this year. I started a video blog with a classmate at GHC08 where we did two pre-conference videos introducing ourselves and going over what to pack. This year we did a five episode series that included introducing ourselves for anyone new to our show, providing tips to first time attendees, and going over the eight session tracks.

Twitter was used to distribute announcements of new blog posts or video or new information about the conference. It's also used as a networking tool. Many of the GHC09 official Twitterers did not know each other. At the conference, when we ran into one another (and realized it), we weren't meeting a stranger. I discoverer a Twitterer who works for Sun is from my home town after I tweeted about a Fort Wayne issue.

At the conference, all these mediums were used as was a Wiki for note-taking. While at the conference, a conflict arose, and I was unable to attend a session I felt would be beneficial to my career. However, I was able to access the Wiki at a later time to see notes not just from the presenter, but also the audience Q&A.

The blog was used to share personal reactions to sessions, as well as session summaries.

The YouTube group was used to video record attendees that may not be presenting as well as interview presenters.

Twitter was used extensively. The conference center actually had a Twitter account that followed those using the hashtag, and responded to requests for stronger WiFi, turning down A/C, and providing other venue-related q's. It also allowed people following the back channel at one session to tweet questions to people at other sessions to ask. For example, I was note-taking one session, and someone tweeted an interesting quote from another session. I replied with a question, which the woman was able to ask on my behalf.

Beyond the conference I use Twitter to keep in touch with the new members of my network. After seeing one woman invite my old roommate to a Girls Geek Dinner, I tweeted my jealousy. In response, the Su employee from my hometown declared we would have a geek dinner of our own over the winter holiday.

This post was originally published on Ashley's personal blog, Let's Eat that Big Fish, at http://organizefish.com/blog/archives/149.

How does biology explain the low numbers of women in computer science? Hint: it doesn't.

2009-10-17T07:17:00.000-07:00

I'm tired of people saying, "Oh, it's statistically proven that women are worse in math than men, so that's why there aren't more women in computer science."

My first degree is in mathematics. So I looked up the studies. I did the math. And it just didn't add up. Biology doesn't explain our gender gap.

I used to do this presentation on whatever paper was handy when someone tried to spout this misconception in my hearing. But I thought it might be more useful if I put it online, and I'm sure lots of other women from the Grace Hopper Celebration would like these slides to use and share.

So here it is. A quick presentation that explains why biology cannot explain the gender gap in computer science:

How does biology explain the low numbers of women in computer science? Hint: it doesn't.

View more presentations from Terri Oda.

Like it? Hate it? Catch the Mathnet reference? Let me know.

The slides have also been posted to My personal blog and Geek Feminism... Feel free to pass them on!

Motivación e Inspiración: Latinas en GHC09

2009-10-12T13:49:00.000-07:00

El grupo de Latinas participó en GHC09 activamente con: 1F2W4Pa1R3P4B1L1T. Pueden decodificar este número en un blog anterior de Gilda.
Una de las primeras actividades fué el día Miércoles, justo con mi presentación en el PhD Forum 3, en la cual ahondaré mas en otra nota.
Una de las charlas mas esperadas y con mayor asistencia (incluso hubo asistentes que se sentaron el el suelo) fue la impartida por Cecilia Aragón y Justin Cassell titulada Para Investigadores que inician su carrera: Cultivando/Aumentando tu programa de investigación (For Early Career Researchers: Growing Your Research Program).
Cecilia Aragón nos explicó la importancia de tener una red de profesionales para mejorar nuestra visibilidad y nuestra investigación. Nos dió varios consejos para comenzar/aumentar esta red, informal o formalmente en conferencias, congresos, etc.
Algunos tips fueron:

Participar en discusiones con conferencistas después de su charla.
Hacer planes para el almuerzo o la cena.
Hablar, no tener miedo de usar el micrófono si es necesario.
Conocer a la gente que está sentada a un lado tuyo o se te acerca.
Dar seguimiento a los contactos después de un evento.
Dar pláticas y conferencias en tu departamento/escuela.

También nos dió consejos para formar equipos de colaboración y cómo escribir propuestas para solicitar financiamiento.

La presentación de Cecilia puede ser consultada aquí.

Posteriormente, Justine Cassell nos contó algunas anécdotas personales de cómo inició sus colaboraciones y redes de investigación y nos compartió un ejercicio que realiza con sus estudiantes y colaboradores: Hacer una lista de 20 personas que entiendan/estén interesados en tu área de investigación e ingeniártelas para conocerlas. Algunos tips para concerlos es enviándoles correos acerca de tu investigación, compartiendo con ellos extensiones o nuevos resultados obtenidos con su investigación, enviar estudiantes graduados a visitar colegas, etc. El objetivo es disminuír la lista cada año. "Pasión es algo que compartimos como investigadores" mencionó Justine.

Algo que no deja de sorprenderme es la honestidad con la que investigadoras exitosas como Justine y Cecilia nos comentan que no fue del todo fácil para ellas comenzar a crear su red de colaboración. Esto es muy común en GHC y aliciente para las asistentes el saber que no somos las únicas con un poco de temor al comenzar este tipo de actividades.

Una de las actividades que más disfruté fué el almuerzo de Latinas, para el cual se registraron 119 asistentes. Curiosamente, lo menos que hicimos en este almuerzo fué almorzar. Como buenas latinas, hablamos, hablamos y hablamos. Fué realmente enriquecedor conocer a otras mujeres con las que comparto las mismas metas, inquietudes y preocupaciones, no sólo a nivel profesional, sino también a nivel personal. Motivación, inspiración y alegría definen el ambiente que se vivió en cada una de las mesas. Un buen lugar para formar nuevas amistades y nuestra red de colaboración. Ésta es una imagen con algunas de las Latinas con las que almorcé, cortesía de Natalie Gil:

No puedo dejar de mencionar la actividad Speed Mentoring, organizada por Dilma Da Silva, Nadia Anguiano-Wehde, Cecilia Aragon, Claris Castillo, Gilda Garreton, Patty Lopez y Mara Silva. Siguiendo la idea de Speed Dating, en esta sesión se asignó a cada una de las participantes una mentora durante cierto período de tiempo para discutir algún tema de nuestro interés. Al término de este período una nueva mentora era asignada y aquéllas que no tenían mentora dado que el número de participantes era mayor que el de mentoras, esperaban fuera de la sala mientras discutían temas mas generales. Esta actividad me pareció fabulosa.

En este blog encontrarás otras actividades organizadas por Latinas que omití por motivo de espacio, pero no por ello menos importantes. Mi participación en GHC09 se enriqueció con las actividades de Latinas. No sólo encontre inspiración en otras mujeres, sino que fué muy emotivo el saber que algunas de las actividades que realizo pueden inspirar a otras.

Si tu eres una Latina en Computación, únete al grupo Latinas in Computing a través de la lista de distribución de correo electrónico o en Facebook. Te aseguro que no te arrepentirás.

Publicado orignalmente en mi blog.

Valerie's Thoughts on GHC09!

2009-10-12T09:15:00.000-07:00

I knew in advance that the conference had sold out, but that did not prepare me for what I encountered once I arrived: the largest, most diverse, most intelligent gathering of women I've ever been surrounded by. The women were students, industry luminaries, open source hackers, coders, program managers, managers, CEOs, directors, mothers, and everything in between. I swear the age range of attendees was probably 16 to 80. I met more women from Africa during that conference than had ever in my life before. Several from Nigeria and Kenya, in particular.

The conference schedule, as always, was intense. There just are not enough hours in the day for all of the stuff we all wanted to do.

I attended a full day of sessions Wednesday, each room just as packed as the last, even though official conference launch wasn't until 7PM that evening. I met with most of my panelists on Wednesday night, which did mean I missed most of the poster session, which was disappointing - but I had so much fun talking to the interesting women that were going to present with me on Thursday, that I couldn't see any other choice! The conference was off to a fantastic start!

On Thursday, I was lucky to catch up with Dr. Susanne Hambrusch and the students she had brought from the Purdue Computer Science Department. As a graduate of that great university, it is always so rewarding to meet these ambitious and intelligent students. For some of us, we have met at other Grace Hopper Celebrations - others, it was our first time. We all had so much to talk about and I really could've spent a lot more time with them, too!

You can see my blogs for most of the sessions I attended for the rest of the week, but I just wanted to say something about both receptions.

Thursday night's dancing was deejayed in the style of 80's Wedding Dance Party, but sometimes it's a lot of fun to just get out and dance to those old silly songs! He did mix in some fun Indian and Arabic music to mix it up, and I've never before seen a woman dancing the Macarena with a baby strapped to her front in a snuggly. Dancing with hundreds of women with total abandon is good for the soul!

Friday night was sponsor night! Thank you Microsoft, Google and Intel for the delicious dinner, t-shirts and additional opportunities to meet and talk with amazing women from all over the world. This evening's deejay was playing much more current music, and you could see the college students dancing like there was no tomorrow. Well, as this was the last evening of the conference, that did kind of fit the bill...

I was very impressed with the technical support staff in the conference center at the JW Marriot Starr Pass Resort. One of their staff members followed tons of women at the conference on Twitter, so he (or was it a she?) knew instantly if there were networking or temperature issues and they were addressed so quickly! Everything just worked and help was always a tweet away. The resort itself was lovely with lots of nice dining choices, and even free tequila shots on the patio every evening. I was very impressed with all of the staff and would attend another conference here in a heartbeat.

The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is more than just a professional skills and technical conference. It is a place where I can reconnect with old friends and companions from industry and academia. I get to meet so many interesting women, that every one of them inspires me in some way.

This year, I even got to meet a lot of the women I follow on Twitter right there at the conference!

I've seen a lot of blogs and tweets lately on Women in Technology vs Women Who Do Technology. Personally, as a women who designs and developers software, I am happy having women around me in any capacity. Yes, it is very nice to have technical conversations with other women, which I find often focus more on how a solution to a problem was found instead of what the final solution was, but at least knowing I'm not alone in the organization or on my team is worth something, too. I'm lucky, I know. I work with several women who are also developers on my team, as well as females on the management team. The last project I was on, 2 out of 3 developers were women. :-) I met lots of women at the celebration who are not so fortunate.

I am thankful for the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing that it brings me closer to my peers and more women like me. I've been inspired to try to start an affinity group for Women in OpenSolaris, and to try to inspire younger women to investigate technology careers. Any suggestions or any one that wants to help, please share or let me know!

Valerie Fenwick

Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges Faced by Women in Computing

2009-10-10T16:18:00.000-07:00

Communication skills are very important. I can't stress that enough. I recently graduated with a master's degree and have been looking for a job for several months now and I've seen it: employers want you to have communications skills. If you are very smart but you can't communicate or get along with others, you are of no use to them.

In my opinion, you can read about communication all you want but it still won't be the same as actually putting it into practice. What I recommend is, whenever you can, do presentations, network, write blogs or e-mails or articles... even if you don't want to. That's why I decided to become External Affairs Executive of CU-WISE. I did it because I was an introvert and I wasn't a great communicator. Not to mention I never liked speaking to someone for the first time. It drained me. But after 2 years in that role, here I am writing blogs, speaking at high schools, networking at conferences, and promoting CU-WISE everywhere I go. By the way, a great way to socialize is to wear something goofy (like a funny hat), to be a photographer (approaching people by taking their pictures), or carry something funny (like the duckies in the picture). The CU-WISE executives approached her just because of those silly things!

My notes on this session don't give the panelists justice because I couldn't always keep up with typing what they were saying. They did spend a fair bit of time speaking about different kinds of communication norms in different kinds of cultures. That is definitely something to watch out for. I remember I met a young Iranian lady through CU-WISE and she told me about a concern she had. She asked me why the males in her classes didn't take her seriously. She was in engineering. I asked her to explain because I never felt that way in my undergrad. She told me that when she asks a guy a question about a course, let's say about a formula or something, he always ends up laughing or joking and never answers the question. I thought about it and asked her to explain exactly how she asks these questions. She was a very kind young lady with a very low voice so I thought that maybe she just didn't speak loud enough. In the end I found out that it was in her culture to not look a man in the eyes while speaking with him and to many people here that could show anywhere from lack of confidence to disrespect. I personally feel uncomfortable when someone doesn't look me in the eyes when they are speaking to me. I would assume that they just don't respect me or the conversation we are having.

So I would like to close by reminding you all again to practice, practice, and practice! Does anyone have any comments or suggestions about this topic? About the notes?

The Fight or Flight Moment: Understanding Why We Leave or Stay in Industry

2009-10-10T13:19:00.000-07:00

This session was a lot to take in (in a good way) but I did my best at writing notes. The presenter was Sue Dorward from Sudo Coaching. I could tell she knew what she was talking about and I am thankful that she took the time to present her data to us.

First off I would like to mention that both industry and women benefit from retaining women in industry. Companies are starting to work more at retaining women because there is more demand than supply and it is expensive to replace us. At least that is the short version of the answer.

Sue highlighted three studies that were done on women in industry. They were the Athena Factor by Harvard University, the Catalyst, and a study called "Climbing the Technical Ladder". They are available online except for the Harvard one. Check out the notes page for where to find them.

Like I mentioned, there was a lot of awesome data to take in, so I will briefly mention what these studies concluded.

Why do women leave industry?

extreme job pressure and they feel isolated, lacking mentors and so on
culture not women-friendly and they are still experiencing sexual harassment
compensation and they feel their careers are stalled by mid-career

What can women do?

work in a company with >= 10% women in management positions
get mentors, sponsors (who make your accomplishments known), role models, and figure out your career paths
work in a company with more flexible career track timing, on-ramps, etc.

My notes also go into more details about how mid-level women are more likely to have a partner working full time than mid-level men, what companies can do, and so on. So check it out and I encourage you to write your comments below!

The “F word”: The Uneasy Relationship Between Feminism and Technology

2009-10-10T12:21:00.000-07:00

I am sorry for the late post on this session. But like Serena said on another post: better late than never.

In my experience, this session started a day early. You see, the day before this session I presented a BoF about support groups for women in STEM with my fellow executives of CU-WISE (Ottawa, Canada). My group presented in conjunction with MENTE (Mexico) and WICS (Vancouver, Canada). During the question period, someone asked a question I always dread to answer. It was about feminism and how it affects student groups. What surprised me next was that the first thing that one of my fellow executive members, Gail, did was pass the microphone to me. "Oh boy" I thought, and started getting nervous because I had so much to say and I didn't know where to start.

So here's my chance, but I'll keep it short. My notes on the session on the uneasy relationship between feminism and technology are included in the ghc wiki which also includes a report from a "Climbing the Technical Ladder" study. This blog includes my personal perspectives.

Let me start with a definition of feminism. It is defined as "the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men". It is not defined as hating on men, trying to gain more power than men, or anything inventive anyone may think. So let's clear the air. Feminism is what gave you a better life: gave you the right to vote, protected you from sexual harassment, and gave you more equal pay. And women suffered and fought to give you those rights. This is how I see feminism. To me it is a gift that was given to me before I was born and it is my responsibility to appreciate it and to continue attaining those equal rights. By the way, when I say "equal" I don't mean the "same". Women and men are different, they're just not quite equal yet.

It looks like I've already written a lot so let me finish off with something I don't usually talk about because I'm so busy defending feminism. I would like to talk about what I think feminists can do to shed a brighter light on the "f word":

Join a local support group like WISE, MENTE, and WICS. I don't know what I would do without my awesome support group here in Ottawa.
When you are ready, pass it on. Recruit and mentor others. Make your voice heard. Make sure their voices are heard too. Don't judge other women, support them.
Help men understand feminism. Men are part of the solution and we need their support too. Marry a supportive husband. Talk to you brother or father. I know I talk about feminism with my brother's friends who are all in their 20's and in engineering. Right now they're busy going to class, reading textbooks, and writing tests, but they'll be in much closer contact with us in the workplace.
Consider the possibility of scrapping the word and adopting a new one. It is much too difficult to change how people perceive it and I would rather if we spent our energy somewhere else.

There it is folks. Those are my brief thoughts and I encourage you to share your thoughts and experiences too. The room for this session was completely filled so I can imagine that there are a lot of women who would appreciate talking some more about it.

Why, as a technical woman, you might want to attend the GHC conference?

2009-10-08T00:10:00.000-07:00

I was doing this post for the "women in computer science" group at my school and thought of sharing my views here as well .

In this year’s conference there were over 1600 women from diverse backgrounds, right from sociology to cloud computing. It feels great (and secure) to be surrounded by so many technical women! When I am at the GHC conference, I don’t have to worry about admitting to the person sitting beside me that I feel really technically-challenged when it comes to gadgets - I actually admitted this to a woman sitting beside me when I couldn’t get my camcorder to work the way I wanted and she echoed the same sentiment. I felt awesome about not being alone :-). It is this feeling that you are not alone which is so comforting and you can get this feeling only by being at the GHC! You are not alone when it comes to the “Imposter Syndrome” and you are definitely not alone if you find it challenging to be a person of influence.

There is a bright chance of finding support groups at GHC- for example, I got in touch with people who support Information, Communication & Technology for Development (ICTD) and we are now working together towards starting a collaborative virtual project that has immense potential of creating social impact. You can find a mentor or a cool buddy at GHC to share your concerns about issues that you don’t have courage to discuss at your workplace or school. Also, if you are interested in learning about the kind of work that the top notch IT companies are doing (right from Intel to Facebook), you might get a chance to interact with their employees at their booths.

Surprisingly, some people (I met them during different legs of my GHC trip) call this conference as sexist as they feel that the focus is primarily on women in technology, the challenges they face and how they can overcome those challenges. I don’t really care about this sexist/non-sexist thing - the main thing is that I end-up having a good time at the GHC. Such conferences are a chance to feel motivated and do well in life despite the challenges, because you hear so many success-stories when you are there. When you come across stories which are not “success stories”- read failures- they keep you grounded and propel you to do extremely well in life and make the most of the resources you have.

Some of the unique features of this conference (as compared to the other conferences that I have attended) are:

Free Childcare
CONNECT scanners to network with other conference attendees – this makes your networking experience really convenient (http://gracehopper.org/2009/community/connect/)
Awards ceremony and sponsor nights are extremely enjoyable
Soft-Skills enhancement sessions
Awesome community volunteers who blog and take notes of sessions so that if you couldn’t attend them, you can always refer to the online material to know what it was all about!
Number of women participants- greater than 1600!
Ahem…cute swags - for example umbrellas, tote bags, and chocolates

Anita Borg Social Impact Award Winner 2009

2009-10-07T11:36:00.000-07:00

(Note: I just realized I had this post saved on my desktop and not posted on the blog yet! Sorry for delay. Got caught up with the amazing Sponsor night on Friday and traveling back home. Better late than never?)

This year's Social Impact Award Winner, Ekaterina Fedatova, is the Director of the Information Dissemination and Equal Access (IDEA Project).

The goal of the project is to foster information literacy and culture throughout Russia by bringing free access to computers and the internet. The program also provides a training program and workshops on job search and building employment skills. The curriculum gives hands on practical knowledge and provides the opportunity to overcome barriers of fear in technology. As a result of the project, there are now 60 centers in 52 cities, and thousands of people trained!

Here in Canada and America, majority of us are so used to having access to the internet everywhere we go, that we forget how privileged we are sometimes. It's interesting to see how much we've come to rely on technology these days. The importance of the internet and computers have skyrocketed drastically over the years! Remember the days of dial-up? I can't wait to sit down with my kids one day and say "Yknow, back when I was your age we had this thing called dial-up internet... ".

Girls, Computer Science, and Games / Computer Games to a Career in IT

2009-10-05T12:23:00.001-07:00

Gail Carmichael hit upon the idea of doing a 1 week course on games for girls when her university was soliciting proposals for "enrichment mini courses." These courses are largely attended by grade 8s (~13 year olds), typically the advanced students from the local schools. They're intended to give the students a one-week taste of the university environment. If you are interested in running such a program, Gail suggests that there are often similar programs in other cities, local summer camps, local WISE groups, the Girl Guides/Girl Scouts and many others who could help set something up.

The idea was to do a "head fake" -- get the girls excited about learning games, but manage to teach them computer science topics at the same time. The students seemed to crave the harder stuff, and really were excited about being told things like "they don't learn this until second year university!" once the girls had shown that they understood this difficult concept. Gail suggests that we shouldn't be afraid to give students complex concepts.

She notes that another thing the girls craved is Starbucks coffee... who knew?

When teaching younger students, variety seems to help a lot: Gail incorporates videos, lecture time, small groups, whole class discussions, lab time, and the activities from CS Unplugged.

It's interesting to note that Gail's advice for engaging younger students is very similar to the advice offered during the Best Practices for Introductory Computer Science session, which focused on university-aged students: get the students to work together, use interesting themes to motivate problems, and don't be afraid to give the students hard stuff.

The girls created games using the free tool GameMaker, chosen because it is relatively easy for the girls to make games from the drag-and-drop interface without learning programming. (As someone else who has taught students both with and without this interface, I'll add that for first year students, syntax errors can be a huge stumbling block. Tools like GameMaker allow them to create programs without typos making them frequently feel stupid and inadequate, which is a pretty huge advantage for beginners.) Some other (similar) game-creation tools that might be useful include Alice, Kodu, and Scratch.

So, how successful was it? Gail has run the course twice, and did informal surveys at the beginning and end of the course. Most of the girls thought computer science was a reasonable career for a woman, even before they took the course. This is perhaps not surprising, since they were at least interested enough to sign up for the course. But the real payoff was seeing that the girls really did like computer science more after having had a week to try it out.

Gail ended up having the entire hour to herself, since the second speaker, Anne Marie Agnelli, was unable to attend. This gave an opportunity for Gail to showcase one of the games created by her students, as well as have a longer question/discussion section. In fact, the second half of the presentation became much more like a Birds of a Feather session where a variety of women talked about their questions and experiences.

For more notes, including those from the question session, and links to Gail's course materials and slides, see the excellent notes on the girls and games session on the Anita Borg Institute Wiki.

Ed & Ashley's 5 Minute Show - GHC09, Round 2!

2009-10-05T00:09:00.000-07:00

I'm proud to announce that all GHC09 episodes of Ed & Ashley's 5 Minute Show are posted! Once again, I'm only going to embed two of our videos in this post, and will provide links and descriptions to the rest. Ed and I will be attending Microsoft's PDC conference in November, so if you know of a woman who is attending, we'd love to interview her! Shoot Ed an email at donahue.edd@gmail.com!

Ed & Ashley's 5 Minute Show - Ep 46 (GHC09)

Deidre Straughan a Community Specialist and (Video)blogger at Sun Microsystems discusses why video is effective. You can find her video at http://blog.sun.com/video and her blog at http://blog.sun.com/deirdre.

Ed & Ashley's 5 Minute Show - Ep 47 (GHC09)

Deidre Straughan and Theresa Giacomini, both with Sun Microsystems, discuss growing the community behind the OpenSolaris Open Source project.

Ed & Ashley's 5 Minute Show - Ep 48 (GHC09)

Valarie Bubb Fenwick of Sun Microsystems explains what open source is and her role as a developer on the Open Solaris project. She also blogs at http://blogs.sun.com/bubbva/.

Ed & Ashley's 5 Minute Show - Ep 49 (GHC09)

Rebecca Norlander of Microsoft talks about the super powers involved in being a person of influence.

Ed & Ashley's 5 Minute Show - Ep 50 (GHC09)

Diane Curtis of Microsoft tells us, well our viewers, what the Imagine Cup is. Find out more at www.imaginecup.com or www.imaginecup.us for students in the US.

Ed & Ashley's 5 Minute Show - Ep 51 (GHC09)

Erin Chapple, Group Program Manager for Windows Server at Microsoft, talks about Technical Mentorship and Sponsorship.

Mastering the Art of the Technical Interview

2009-10-03T22:29:00.000-07:00

Panelists
Gabriel (Gabby) Silberman, CA
Erin Chapple, Microsoft
Traci Wicks, Intuit
Ellen Spertus, Google
Lindsey Fowler, Amazon
Nancy Amato, Texas A & M University
Beverly Walker, Lockheed Martin
Lynn Pastorius, Vanguard

This session was broken into 4 parts: technical questions, behavioral questions, questions for the interviewer, and questions from the audience. Here are the main points from each section.

Technical Questions

Take control of the space [use the white board or any note paper provided]
Show your thought process, think aloud [the interviewer knows your thought process. Thinking through things can help you come up with an answer you didn't think you knew]
Don't be afraid to ask for further clarification of a problem/question
In general, it is expected that you write compileable code although for complex solutions it is sometime acceptable to use pseudo-code

Behavioral Questions

Used because past performance is good indicator of future performance
When discussing team projects, be sure to include your individual contributions [Interviewers also observe how you speak of your teammates]
You can use an example when things didn't quite work out, but be sure in talk about what you learned and what you will do differently in the future

Questions for the Interviewer

Use this time as chance for self-reflection [if you made a mistake earlier in the interviews, perhaps with a different interviewer, you can use this time to correct yourself. Interviewers will most likely meet as a group to discuss their impressions]
Ask how decisions are made in the organization and what the core values are [Make sure the core values align with your own]
Get different perspectives of the company by asking the same question of different interviewers [Remember, you're interviewing the company too!]

Keynote, Fran Berman

2009-10-03T15:39:00.000-07:00

Keynote, Fran Berman, Vice President for Research, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

The keynote focused on the future of the information age. Specifically how we're going to keep and archive current information. We need to archive the information because "access tomorrow starts with preservation today. You can't access tomorrow that which you don't have." Together we much decide what we want to save. Even before that, who is we? There are so many groups of we, society in general, the research community, individuals, and each group wants to save different information from census information to the digital copy of home movies.

Along with what to save, we also need to decide how to save it. Whatever archival form we decide to use, we need to stick with. The amount of data that we want to save is massive and it would take copious amounts of time to change the format of all the information. Think of how long it takes to put a VHS movie on DVD or to make a digital copy of an LP. When we save it, we have to make multiple copies and be sure to tag it so we remember what it is (good advice for any information anyone saves!).

In order to deal with the future of the overwhelming information age, we need to create the next generation of leaders; the students of today! We have to make sure they have the right knowledge and experience:

There is no answer key for the real world
The problems will be hard and the solutions won't necessarily be elegant
Experience with failure
Experience with international cultures

We have the power to create positive change. We have the power of:

Asking the question; you can't improve what you can't articulate
Creating explicit goals and metrics of success
Recognition and encouragement
Policy, resource allocation, and prioritization

Tools for change: human-centered design research

2009-10-03T11:57:00.001-07:00

The second session I attended on Friday morning is titled "tools for change: human-centered design research". I wasn't sure what to expect, because I haven't been working on too much consumer electronics or user products. It was truly eye-opening to learn what goes on in a completely different field.

The presenter first gave a short description of her area of expertise, which is design research. She investigates through making materials, methods, and processes. Some of the research methods she uses include: questionnaires and crowd-sourcing, observational and immersive ethnography, interviews and conversational formats, probes, prototypes and mock-ups. One important thing going into design research is to hang your values at the door! Put your pre-conceived notions aside and really listen to what the people say.

She then described a few projects that she's done using the design research methods. The first was a game targeted for girls, to persuade them to engage with computers. They studied how boys and girls behave differently, while males create social dominance by overt competition, direct measures, and status hierarchies; girls do so with covert competition, affiliation & exclusions, and status networks. Their primary learnings from this study include: 1) everything you know (or wish were true) is (likely to be) wrong, and 2) human-centered research is fundamental to design, especially design that's intended to change things.

She then presented a few projects she advised at various schools, including one that investigates why car dealers were hiding their hybrid cars in the back and not try to sell them (this was back in 2001). It turns out that the car salesmen don't understand the hybrid technology and were afraid to talk about them to the customers. The students created education material to inform, expand, and connect the hybrid car community.

The next project created a toy targeted for tweens. The key learning from this project is that for tweens, technology = comfort. If we were designing things that are comfortable for the designers instead of the target audience, it would never sell because of the difference between the generations.

There were two more projects (environmental hero, organic food marketing), but because of the time constraints, she went through them fairly quickly. The project teams followed the same research methodologies and gathered information from the target audience, be it young boys or adults who were not interested to purchase organic food for various reasons. The findings were sometimes non-intuitive, but the end products/prototypes were successful because they listened to the people who will be using the product.

After the slides, we had a brief Q&A session, here are some notes:

Q: How do we design tools/games/gadgets for girls/women for things they are normally not interested in?

A: keep in mind that women tend to be more interested in the technology when they can see the outcome. In comparison, men tend to be more interested when they know how things work.

Q: What advice do you have to come up with creative methods, and turn data collection into key insights and solutions?

A: the most important thing is to get your feet wet and get into the field!

For me, this topic is interesting in another aspect. Back in grad school when I was choosing my specialty, it was a very close call between computer architecture and user interface design (Carnegie Mellon has a great Human Computer Interaction department). I eventually chose computer architecture, but this talk gave me a glimpse into the type of work I would be doing if I went the other way. I am living vicariously through the conference! :)

Ignite Talks, GHC 2009

2009-10-03T08:41:00.000-07:00

"Opening the house of technology". That could have been the sub-title of this year's inaugural Ignite Talks. Yes, there were major differences in approaches (from GiveCamps to implementing the results of 35-year longitudinal psychological studies).

Yes, the presenters had wildly different presentation styles (from Jennifer Marsman, a fount of energy from Microsoft to David Klappholz who lectured from the podium with mature passion).

Yes, they were all serving different women (Nayda Santiago is helping Puetro Rican female undergraduates get to and through grad-school to Kassie Bowman of Raytheon, who is focusing on getting kids excited about math through MathMovesU.com).

Yes, their approaches clearly reflected their training (Jill Ross of Image of Computing presented on "A New Image of Computing", Dawn Carter of Amazon dealt with girls in her community, Emma L Anderson of Oberlin College about "Feminist Perspectives on Teaching Introductory CS" and Ruchi Sanghvi of Facebook on "Powering Online Social Movements").

But the impetus that moves them, the problem they are solving, the population they are worried about, all the same.

I should say, the impetus that moves us, the problem we are, the population we are worried about, because I (Jessica Dickinson Goodman) presented about "Playing with Alice After School" for the Ignite Talks 2009.

Listening to so many vitally interested women (and one man!) present about their work to open the house of technology to women, to U.S. middle schoolers, student movements around the world, was invigorating. The 10 minutes we were each given felt abbreviated, particularly for the industry and faculty presenters (15 would have been fine and allowed the audience to feel comfortable and non-infringing when they asked questions), but the experience of being filled with the information of these talks BAM BAM BAM was awesome. Below are the titles of the talks with links to their wikis.

A New Image of Computing, Jill Ross (Image of Computing)
Changing the Future – One Girl at a Time, Dawn Carter (Amazon)
Coding for Charity: How to run a Give Camp, Jennifer Marsman (Microsoft)
Feminist Perspectives on Teaching Introductory CS, Emma L Anderson (Oberlin College)
FemProf –Advancing Undergraduate Female Students to a Professoriate Career: A Case Study, Nayda Santiago (University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Campus)
MathMovesU – A Defense Company’s Efforts to Encourage Engineering, Kassie Bowman
Playing with Alice After School, Jessica Dickinson Goodman (Carnegie Mellon University)
Powering Online Social Movements, Ruchi Sanghvi (Facebook)
The Real Projects for Real Clients (RPRCC) Initiative: An ACM-W Project Aimed at Recruiting Young Women Into, And Retaining Them in, Computing Majors, David Klappholz (Stevens Institute of Technology)

(Raytheon)

Inspirational Quote:

Only the desert has a fascination—to ride alone—in the sun in the forever unpossessed country—away from man. That is a great temptation.
--D.H. Lawrence

NonTrads: Women Following a non-Traditional Path in Pursuit of a Technical Degree and Career

2009-10-02T23:34:00.000-07:00

This was a really inspirational session. It started out off with all the women on the panel describing their path to where they are today and what they're doing. This included things like having to get out of industry to have kids, re-entering college for an advanced degree after many years, being in college almost perpetually, and many other things.

Every non-Trad has faced and are still facing significant challenges to get where they are today - which is why the "NonTrads" group was created - to build a support system for one another.

The session concluded with audience participants presenting a question or describing their non traditional career path. Many students were describing their "non traditional NonTrad" life - and explained some of the hardships they have faced or are facing. I've included most of the discussion on the notepage for this session.

Basically, the bottom line of this session:

As long as you are passionate about what you do, everything will fall into place.
Don't let other people discourage you from pursuing that passion!

Technical mentorship and sponsorship: why you need it and how to find it

2009-10-02T23:33:00.000-07:00

I've known about technical mentors for a while, but I only just learned about the concept of sponsors a few months ago. I'm sorry to say at the moment I have neither :( A few years ago I had an informal mentor, but as things get hectic I kind of lost the relationship. Anyway, I was pretty excited about this panel, because I really wanted a kick to jump start my finding a mentor and/or a sponsor.

First, the panelists gave a good explanation of the difference between mentor and sponsor. Amentor is a person who has the power to create positive change in your career. They give you technical advice to help you stronger technically, steer you toward the right projects to make you more visible, help you gain leadership skill and learn how to use your technical skills more effectively, and is someone who will listen to you vent.

In comparison, a sponsor is someone who takes an active role in endorsing your work and open doors for you, they suggest new opportunities and supports you in pursuing them. A sponsor need to have a seat at the decision making table, to be your eyes and ears. They need to be closer to your organization, compared to a mentor that can be anywhere. Also, you should be careful what information you share with the sponsor, show them your good work so they can recommend and endorse you. Don't show them your struggles.

Q: Where do you find them?

A: Your manager could be an obvious choice, but it is already their job to help you. Look for your manager's peers, and anyone in senior roles. Look in social/network affinity groups, you can meet and connect with the right people through these networks. A sponsor needs to have enough influence to open doors for you, so a peer would not make a good sponsor. At the same time, you don't always have to find sponsors at executive level. You need to build good working relations with people and sometimes they'll advance to a position where they can help you. Also, recognize that sometimes someone will be your sponsor on their own, and you need to recognize that.

Q: What do you do with a technical mentor?

A: You can review your job description with them and scrub through what is expected of you. Have them help you identify area of growth, and think about how to strategically approach your career growth.

Q: What do you do with a sponsor?

A: You need this person to be your PR agent, who can extend/demonstrate your work/skills that you bring to the table. You can sometimes ask your sponsor to do things, like removing roadblocks for you.

Q: What do mentors look for in a mentee?

A: Know what they are looking for, have a goal, thirst, and passion, so they can go on a journey together and both benefit. You need to want to reach, grow, and extend yourself.

Q: Can a mentorship be bad?

A: Sometimes a mentor can tell you something you absolutely do not believe in, you may have to break up with them. Make sure you don't burn any bridges. A nice way to do that is to show that you've accomplished your goals and have them recommend a new mentor to help you with new goals. If you are in a formal mentorship program, be honest with the program manager if things aren't working out.

Q: Thoughts on informal mentor relationships?

A: There is definitely benefit in both informal and formal mentorships. In formal mentorship it forces you to articulate your objectives, and you have an opportunity to develop a deeper relationship with that person. There is less potential for that in casual mentorships. However, don't give up the casual mentors, they could lead to a more formal mentor relationship later.

Q: How do you ask someone to be your sponsor?

A: you don't necessarily need to ask them to be your official sponsor, but you can manage your interaction with them to give them more information to act on your behalf.

Whew, that is definitely a lot of useful information! Now my goal is to identify some possible candidates before I go back to work next Monday!

Change Agent Awards Panel – sponsored by Google

2009-10-02T23:32:00.000-07:00

Below are my impressions from the Change Agents Awards Panel for GHC09, and after that are the official bios of these incredible women.

Africa seems both very near and very far away on days like these. I spent my summer working for clients, survivors of human rights abuses, many of who grew up in Africa. I've used Google Maps to trace the Niger, seen tiny towns like the ones Human Rights USA's clients grew up in, felt connected.

Reading all of these posters and listening to all of these presentations about high technology, it feels easy to forget how deep and cavernous the digital divide is. Each of these change agents are working to give women in their communities access to the most basic staples of computing. Some of these three women were working to foster entrepreneurship, some seeking to teach basic skills, all suffering from a lack of funding.

That was my biggest takeaway: funding these women is a safe-bet to helping women access technology.

Please go here to donate to NairoBits.

Here to donate to the Networking for Success project.

[I was unable to find online presences for any other projects listed below. If you know of them, please comment and I will include them]

Just reading through their bios gives me tingles--and seeing them in person was inspiring.

Oreoluwa Somolu, founder of Women’s Technology Empowerment Centre is passionate about empowering women/girls of Nigeria through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as well as encouraging them to take up technology careers. Her initiatives include the Networking for Success project, where women were trained to use web 2.0 tools to facilitate knowledge gathering and sharing in their work; the Girls Technology Camp, which exposed high school girls to the relevance of ICTs to academic and professional pursuits; her collaboration with Fahamu to organize Blogs for African Women and BAWO, a blog mentoring initiative for African girls.

Halima Ibrahim’s initiative the Mu’assassatul Mar’aatus Saliha Women’s Skill Acquisition Centre is one of the biggest initiatives to emerge from the Community Technology Skills Program in Nigeria over the last three years. It has empowered over a 1000 women in ICT and Handcraft skills while fostering local innovation and creating jobs and opportunities for people. These women have been motivated and equipped with knowledge that has made them financially stable and independent while working from their homes where they are often in seclusion. The rate of divorce among this group of women has reduced due to the economic empowerment of women because they are perceived to have more value in their homes.

Anne Ikiara-Kabaara is the General Manager of Nairobits Trust, an organization dealing with youth/women empowerment through ICT in the non-formal settlements of Nairobi. Anne is devoted to helping others to get further in their lives. Nairobits has a vision of giving youth technical, social and entrepreneurship skills to enable them to positively change the circumstances. Though Nairobits deals with both genders, they take extra effort and affirmative action to engage the girls. They have been successful in getting jobs for 1,500 underprivileged girls/women.

Inspirational Quote:

... It is the desert’s grimness, its stillness and isolation, that bring us back to love. Here we discover the paradox of the contemplative life, that the desert of solitude can be the school where we learn to love others.--Kathleen Norris

Tips, Tricks and Software for Keeping Research Organized

2009-10-02T18:27:00.000-07:00

As somebody who naturally loves to organize, this session was close to my heart. Oddly enough, I didn't really do a whole lot of organizing for my Masters research (I guess it was 'simple' enough that I didn't need to), but I'm really excited to use some of this advice as I start my PhD. One of the first things I'm going to (finally) do after thinking about it a lot is setting up an SVN server on my own webserver.

Read the rest on my blog.

Best Practices for Introductory Computer Science

2009-10-02T17:51:00.000-07:00

The panel started with the bad stuff: There were 50% fewer computer science students in 2007 than there were in 2000, with numbers continuing to decline in 2007-2008. The attrition rate is 30-40% in computer science, so we lose a lot of students every year.

Then they moved in to the good stuff: ideas that have worked at their respective universities: Duke, RIT, Union College and the College of New Jersey. There were lots of very specific tips, but I've grouped them into three parts: collaboration, themeing, and hard problems.

Duke has a peer led team learning program, where students can become peer leaders and teach each other.
RIT has a game software development introductory sequence, where they teach the first 3 levels of CS as motivated by game design programs.
Union college has 5 different theme-based intro courses (plus one for engineers), so rather than working on generic problems in first year, they are immediately working on bioinformatics, game design, etc.
The College of New Jersey has a traditional track to level 3, but also accelerated multimedia track. And their CS 3 course has them working on socially relevant, interdisciplinary problems.

There were a variety of themes that came up in all the presentations: collaboration was a big one. Getting students to interact, work together, even teach each other seems to make a huge difference in their ability to learn and succeed. This was done in a variety of ways, from required group projects, teaching, wikis, to more subtle things like requiring use of tools the students may not have seen, so they are forced to learn together, or by teaching games, which tend to be very social. Students still sometimes have to be told "it's ok to talk to each other" but when they do learn to do that, they benefit.

Another theme was, well, themes. Students seemed to respond well to real-world problems, and themes can be used to inspire all assignments, examples, and lessons. Interest in the problems provides motivation for students to overcome the "hard" parts. And "getting it" is a lot more exciting when you're solving a problem that matters -- whether it's making your game work, or writing code that will be used by another department to solve a problem.

And finally, it's clear that in order to get more students to succeed, you don't need to dumb it down. Students are capable of doing very complex things when properly motivated and supported (both by the school and by their peers). In fact, they may be more motivated by hard problems than they would have been by simplified ones, since the hard problems are relevant to real problems. I really loved this part of the discussion, since I myself left computer science (I got a math degree first) because it was too easy and pointless. And I've noticed time and time again, now that I teach first year students, that they're way more capable than outsiders might expect.

I think the panelists summed up their key message well: "Set students up for success -- not failure."

This post can also be found on my personal blog

GHC09: Open Source Community Development: A Moderator's Perspective

2009-10-02T17:09:00.000-07:00

I was so nervous yesterday hosting my first panel at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. I had put off writing my introduction until arriving at the conference, thinking I'd have plenty of time to do it... not realizing that I would be reconnecting with friends that have moved across country or students I met last year or just this year. Time, suddenly, didn't exist, so I ended up skipping the plenary session on path to executive leadership so I could take the introdution I'd written in my head & put it on paper to make sure I wasn't missing anything nor was my introduction going to take up too much time. Sure enough I had to do a couple of edits to get it right, so while I was sorry to miss out on that session, I'm glad I took the time to do so.

When I got to the room, it was a bigger space than I expected, but at least everyone could have a seat :) My OpenSolaris laptop worked right away with the projector, which made me very happy. The technician setting up the room recommended I set my computer so the screen saver wouldn't come on. I thought I'd done that before... so I didn't bother checking. Stupid hubris.

I only had two slides - which are on the GHC wiki - the first with the name of the talk and the second had the names of each panelist, in the order she was sitting, with their affiliation. After the session finished, I got a lot of positive feedback on that - it's good to know I'm not the only person that can't keep track of all of the panelists (particularly when we all seem to have last minute changes in our panel lineups).

As I started introducing each of the panelists, I had all of the advice on running a panel running through my head - terrified that I'd screw something up: mispronounce a name or affiliation, stutter or knock my paper list of intros on the floor. Fortunately, none of those things happened in the first few minutes :) I did step on Stormy's self-introduction a bit, but she forgave me and made sure she was heard.

One piece of advice I had read, which was really counterintuitive for me given my melodrama training at the Gaslighter Theatre, was to not look at your panelists when they are talking. In melodrama, you say your lines straight to the audience, then turn and face the next speaker. This draws the audience's eyes to the speaker. But, I found as I did this, just as the advice said would happen, the panelists looked at me instead of at the audience. As rude as it felt, I had to force myself to turn my gaze back to the audience. It worked!

I was so happy with how each woman on the panel had prepared their introduction and had thought about the questions from our proposal, though I was surprised when they didn't naturally follow-on to each other at first. I think this was because I said I didn't want more than 2 women answering any one question, so we could keep the flow going. :-)

About ten minutes into the talk... my screen saver started to kick in. *d'oh* I wiggled the mouse. Something happened and the display "flipped out" - it started flashing and was filled with horizontal bars. I couldn't get the console to respond, so just rebooted... which took us to a brief OpenSolaris advertisement as the system happily restarted. Thank goodness for the fast boot, though!

I did finally stop shaking about a third of the way through the panel and was able to replace my forced smile with a natural one, as I could finally relax and enjoy the panelists.

I was very impressed with what some of the other communities have done to encourage women to join their community and that got me thinking about doing something for OpenSolaris. We're such a big thing - with many sub communities - any suggestions for doing this?

I was so happy with all of my panelists: Stormy Peters, Kathryn Vandiver, Sandy Payette, Teresa Giacomini and Terri Oda! Thank you, ladies!

Valerie Fenwick

Ruzena Bajcsy... Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award winner

2009-10-02T16:38:00.000-07:00

This was one of the best sessions I have attended at the Grace Hopper Conference this year... to hear this technical lady of astounding impact talk about Computer Vision, a field that I have always had interest in.. :)

With a list of innumerable qualifications and awards having become quite synonymous with her now, Ruzena is a professor in the University of California, Berkeley. She has made substantial impact in today's world, by combining the various research areas together to make contributions to technology. For about an hour in today's session, the time that she spoke, She completely left me amazed about all the advances that one can make using Computer Vision and Control Theory...

Read more about this role model on my blog!

Is your future in the individual contributor or manager track?

2009-10-02T16:23:00.000-07:00

I had always thought that I would start out in a developer role then eventually take on a management role, but never thought of taking on management position right away. However looking back on my experience so far, it makes me wonder what track I've already "chosen".

My first "real job" during university was an Assistant Manager role. At the age of 19, I was managing a team of four, all of whom were twice the age as I was. I took on the position with little experience and confidence in my abilities, but I had a very supportive manager who believed in me and took the time to train me. By the end of the summer I had accomplished all the objectives assigned to me and coordinated the production of an annual package to be sent out to customers across the nation.

Last summer I was faced with the same question again as I was applying for a summer internship. One of the job applications listed two options: management or development. I decided to apply for the latter, but was surprised to find out that my interview would be for a management role instead. I flew down for my interviews and was offered the position a few weeks later. Since then I've had the experience to take on both roles and I believe the management role might actually be a better "fit" for my personality.

We are told that we have the freedom to manage our careers yet it seems (as with many things in life), "it just kinda happens and falls into place". Interestingly enough the panelists today had also mentioned that they did not plan or strive to be in a management position but they just found themselves in their role.

Are our career tracks determined by our natural characteristics and personality? Or is it determined by our skills that we build along our career?

A Walk in the Clouds - Industry leaders give their perspectives on Cloud Computing

2009-10-02T15:30:00.000-07:00

Location: Tucson F
Panelists: Shivani Sud (Intel), Kumud Srinivasan (Intel), Raejeanne Skillern (Intel), Anugeetha Kunjithapatham (Samsung).

The session started with an introduction to Cloud Computing. Cloud Computing is a computation paradigm that makes computation resources available as services. This kind of paradigm is dynamic and virtualized with centralized compute and storage facilities. The model is on-demand self-service one. The storage and computing resources are elastic and scalable. The pricing is consumption-based (pay-per-service). The computing power is available anytime, anywhere, internet is required to connect though.

There are two types of clouds: public cloud and private cloud. One example of a public cloud is Amazon EC2. Public clouds are provided to the end-users over the internet, and using them one can grow as much as one wants. On the other hand the private clouds are offered to a restricted group of users. There is more isolation (control) and are costlier than the public clouds.

What is required to enable clouds?

Ubiquitous connectivity everywhere
Reliability of these services is going to be important
Interoperability between service providers is a key to this kind of paradigm
Security and privacy is not of much concern here
Economic value are the key driving factors

Why and When not to use cloud?

Not a blanket approach
Connectivity is still spotty
Financial benefits are not yet been proven
Security is one of the biggest concerns
Reliability
The lack of interoperability so that can make one switch from one vendor to another might deter a buyer

A case-study from Intel was presented. The benefits they felt by using cloud computing were:

Agility to respond to the users has increased
Ability to accelerate the projects, especially if the expertise is not available in house
On-demand self-service approach goes well with the end user

However, the cost picture is not clear. If not managed correctly, it could lead to an increase in cost. Security is a big concern also.

GHC09: Susan Landau: Bits and Bytes: Explaining Communications Security (and Insecurity) in Washington and Brussels

2009-10-02T14:31:00.000-07:00

Susan Landau started out giving us her history about how she went from a theoretical computer science faculty member at a university to someone working at Sun Microsystems on public policy. A path she said she wasn't working towards, but feel she must've been just a little bit, or she wouldn't have ended up where she is.

The US first started doing wire tapping during the Civil War! Wow! Apparently we didn't slow down - not only did the US use wire tapping to watch criminals, but they were also doing it on congress people and supreme court judges! In particular, a congress person could be talking about the FBI budget and the FBI would be listening in! Clearly a conflict of interest!

Congress didn't like this and put in a law to regulate this - requiring wire taps to only be for a specific person at a specific number

In 1994 a US law was passed that required all digitally switched telephones to be built wire tapped enabled! The equipment was to be designed by the FBI, much to the chagrin of telephony providers.

This is problematic - in 2004-2005, it was discovered that some non US diplomats had been wiretapped - but not by a government entity! (at least not officially.) This was discovered when there was some problems with text messaging on one of these phones. They found the switch in Greece, which had been bought from a US company with the wire tapping software disabled - so no auditing software was enabled. Someone very knowledgeable with the switch used a rootkit to get in, turn on the wire tapping software and then targeted these diplomats! With no auditing software enabled, the Greek phone company had no idea this was happening until there were problems with the text messages! Once this illegal wire tap was discovered, the phones that were listening in suddenly went dark and the perpetrators were never found. Very scary stuff!

This is a clear example of how software made to "protect" us can actually be used to spy on innocent people - terrifying indeed!

All of this gets much more complicated with technology like VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) where people do not have a set phone number, it is done with the IP address which will vary every time you reconnect your laptop or mobile device to the network. What this means is it is very hard to pinpoint the caller - one of the risks here is that the wrong person will be eavesdropped upon.

Landau knows it is very important for society to have secure communications - to enable conversations with first responders, for example, and we need to have the technology to do this.

Landau continues on about how much more devastating natural disasters are than terrorist attacks, yet for some reason they don't get nearly as much news and political coverage than a terrorist attack. I wonder if we all feel we're more protected from a random natural disaster? Or if we are fascinated with how evil someone would have to be to purposefully hurt another human? hrm.

President Bush apparently authorized warrantless wire tapping in 2001 - and this was relatively unknown and undiscovered until 2007. She wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post on this topic, and next thing she knew, she was the expert on privacy. This is good, in that she now has Washington's ears, but she realized she needed to find more people to help support her in this and she was happy to find many intelligent, bright and like minded folks.

Now she's been working on reviewing public policy - basically doing law reviews. Landau jokes that she feels she's in training to be a lawyer.

If you want to get into public policy, you need to learn their stuff: "laws, policies, motives", to speak well, write well and have great courage. She believes these are all the traits that a good engineer should have as well, so perhaps it's a career path after all. :-)

Valerie Fenwick