My Favourite Grace Hopper Memories

My fellow Grace Hopper Communities Committee members wanted to share our favourite Grace Hopper memories over the next few days, and we hope you'll do the same! It's so much fun reflecting back on what has made Grace Hopper so special to me.

I picked a few of my favourite memories to share on my own blog. I hope you'll go check it out, then come back here and comment with your own memories.

Maybe you could pull up some of your past conference photos on Flickr, or find your favourites in the GHC09 Flickr group. Post the photos that give you the fondest memories on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or even here on the blog! You can find links to all the Grace Hopper online communities here.

A Humanities Major's Guide to Surviving GHC09

As a geek whose geekiness comes out in her work (social media consulting, blogging, web presence development), her achievements (only high school student with an essay in She's Such a Geek, programmer for Stanford University Libraries at 18, three time presenter at Hopper) but not her major (Ethics, History and Public Policy [an interdisciplinary major between the History and Philosophy Departments], with a minor in Vocal Performance), it can be a little rough going to a conference for technical women.

Here are three of my coping mechanisms:

1. I am not my coursework--I am my ideas.
   
   Whether you are on Brazen Careerist or not, expect to be hired based on your web presence, not an 8.5x11 sheet of paper. My ideas--whether you find them in my presentations at this year's Hopper, my personal blog, or just through conversation with me--are what makes me a woman in technology, not whether I have taken C++.


2. Focus on the conversations, not the initials.
   
   The Impostor Panel was one of my favorites at Hopper last year. In it, incredible women (a presidents of a major University, inspiring technologists, groundbreaking innovators) stood up and told a roomful of women: "I am an impostor".
   
   Women in technology often feel like impostors, fakes, like we're sliding by until someone notices we're not up to snuff. As geeky humanities majors, we are particularly vulnerable to this feeling. Acknowledge it, process it, and ignore it. We have the ovarios to show up to this conference, and we are here because we have something to say. Once we say it, everyone will know we belong.


3. Technology is more than programming (Or, What Can You Do With a Humanities Degree?).
   
   As a daughter of a programmer, and as a geek who grew up in Silicon Valley, I know the value of programming. But for any given technology to reach its full potential, it needs people to speak for it--policy makers, columnists and visionaries. Here are three humanities majors who are shaping how we develop technology today:
   
   
   
   • Lawrence Lessig graduated from UPenn with a BS in managment and a BA in economics.
   • Annalee Newitz from Berkley with a PhD in English and American Studies.
   • Clay Shirky from Yale College with a degree in Art.
   
   
   So what can you do with a Humanities Degree? Rock the world. In the short-term, rock the Hopper conference.

Build your ideas. Focus on the conversation. Remember who sets policy. And enjoy yourself--this is a world-class chance to be surrounded by geeks like us, and to confirm we're not impostors. Enjoy it, spread it, bring it home.

Inspirational Quote:

For there are two deserts: One is a grim desolate wasteland. It is the home of venomous reptiles and stinging insects, of vicious thorn-covered plants and trees and unbearable heat... visualized by those children of luxury to whom any environment is intolerable which does not provide all the comforts and luxuries of a pampering civilization.

The other desert -- the real desert -- is not for the eyes of the superficial observer or the fearful soul of the cynic. It is a land which reveals its true character only to those who come with courage, tolerance, and understanding. For those the desert holds rare gifts.--Randall Henderson

(My quote-theme for this conference will be desert quotes because we're in Tuscon AZ)

El síndrome del impostor en GHC08 y GHC09

English version in the CU-WISE blog (Part 1 and 2)

"Pareciera que tienes el síndrome del impostor" me dijo un buen amigo cuando le contaba de mi nuevo trabajo, para el que ni siquiera me consideraba buena candidata y jamás habría creído que pasaría de la primera entrevista. Me lo repitió una vez más cuando pasaba por un momento difícil de mis estudios de Doctorado. Nunca había oido de ese síndrom, y no fué hasta GHC08 que volví a escuchar de él.

Mi curiosidad me llevó sin ninguna expectativa alguna a el panel titulado "El síndrome del impostor", al cual llegué temprano y ví como poco a poco la sala se llenaba, incluso había gente de pie. Mi primer pensamiento fué: ¿Será posible que todas estas mujeres hayan tenido sentimientos parecidos a los míos? Todas ellas se ven "normales".

El panel comenzó con la pregunta, ¿Quién se ha sentido un impostor en su vida? y cual fué mi sorpresa cuando al momento que yo tímidamente alzaba mi mano, todas las asistentes hicieron lo mismo. Me sentí en el lugar indicado :-). Mas fué mi sorpresa. cuando escuché que este "problema"era "común" entre las mujeres en ingeniería, ciencia y mas específicamente en computación.

Las panelistas eran mujeres exitosas y dignas de mi admiración, con carreras impecables en la aademia, la industria y el gobierno. Una a una, las panelistas completaron la frase: "Me he sentido un impostor cuando...". He aquí alguna de sus respuestas:

• Estoy en situaciones nuevas (nueva escuela, nuevo trabajo, etc.)
• No entiendo una discusión.
• Me piden cosas para las cuales no me siento calificada.
• Hago algo que la gente "exitosa" hace.
• Hago algo que las mujeres no hacen "típicamente".

Una de las panelistas compartió que se sentía una impostora cuando participaba en una conferencia de Matemáticas (1975), dando una conferencia (1980) o conviviendo con premios Novel (2000), pero ahora ya no se siente como tal en situaciones similares ya que ha participado en muchas conferencias. Sin embargo, ahora se siente una impostora en nuevas circunstancias, como cuando convive con filántropos para pedir grandes cantidades de apoyo para su Universidad.

Así que si te sientes una impostora, ¡No estás sola! Te preguntarás si hay una cura para este síndrome, a continuación encontrarás la opinión de nuestras panelistas:

• ¡No hay cura! Nunca termina (siempre hay nuevas responsabilidades) asi que la mejor opción es tratar los síntomas.
• Cree en ti misma y rodeate de personas que creen en tí.
• Valora las cosas para las que eres buena, recuerda éxitos pasados. Piensa en dónde estabas hace (5-10) años.
• Acepta tus dudas como parte de lo que eres. Recuerda que muchas otras personas que crees que son exitosas, han dudado de sí mismas.
• Toma riesgos (calculados)... saldrás adelante.

• Y me gustaría agregar, haz hasta lo imposible para participar en las conferencias GHC. Sino puedes asistir físicamente, sigue nuestros blogs y envíanos comentarios.
  
  

Así que ya lo sabes, si has sentido este síndrome, no estás sola. Todas estas mujeres (incluyéndome) hemos sentido este síndrome, para el cual no hay cura, pero con un poco de perseverancia y práctica, cada vez lo sentirás menos.

Yo por lo pronto, estaré en primera fila en el Panel del Impostor en GHC09 el próximo Jueves, Octubre 1 a las 11:15am. Espera mis blogs de este panel y ¡Comparte tus historias con nosotras!.

My Splendid GHC08 Experience

Hi, I'm Ed. (That's one of my favorite things to say!) Anyway, I went to GHC last year and Valerie's and Barbora's posts inspired me to continue the "GHC Experience" thread. Last year I was able to go to GHC because I was a scholarship recipient. For me, that in and of itself was incredibly exciting! In preparation for GHC, I updated my resume and submitted it to the GHC Resume Database. My roommate at the time, Ashley, and I also decided that we wanted to do some video-blogging while at GHC. We filmed a couple episodes right before we left. That was the start of Ed & Ashley's 5 Minute Show.

Looking at my Google Calendar, my schedule was pretty packed for the conference. Several companies had contacted me about doing an on-site (at GHC) interview because they found me through the resume database. Between filming, creating my schedule, and preparing for interviews, my first GHC was looking pretty packed and I wasn't even in Keystone yet!

Before I knew it, I was arriving at GHC. I had never been to a big conference before and I was astonished by the number of people there, the exhibits, and the number of sessions. There was so much to do! The conference went by in a flash! Time flies when you're having fun and there never seemed to be enough hours in the day to go to all the sessions, check out the exhibits, and talk with everyone. Ashley and I did a bunch of filming. Because of our show we got to meet some amazing women! Being a young woman in the field of computer science, it was awe-inspiring to meet these woman and talk about their accomplishments and how far women have progressed in the field.

Another really cool thing that came out of GHC were some emails that I received during and after the conference that talked about the Imagine Cup. I'd seen a poster for it on the door of one of my professors, Gloria Townsend, but I didn't know anything about it. After these emails, I looked into it. As a result, Ashley, Malisa Vongskul, and I created an Imagine Cup team, Team MangoBunnies. For the 2009 Imagine Cup, Team MangoBunnies was the first runner-up in the nation (we won $4,000!) and we were the first all-female team to make it to the U.S. Finals.

As it turns out, my preliminary job interviews went well at GHC too! I was offered a job as a software engineer in Denver, CO, where I am now!

Overall, going to the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing has been a pivotal point in my professional (and personal) life. Coming out of GHC, Ashley and I started a show about women in technology, Ashley, Malisa, and I competed and won money in the Imagine Cup, I expanded my network with lots of meaningful connections, and I had a job! Was it even a question as to whether or not I would attend this year's Grace Hopper Celebration? Don't be silly! See you Tucson!

Last year's Grace Hopper Conference caused a chain reaction in my life

After finishing my master's in engineering at Carleton University a few weeks ago, I have begun to reminisce about my life, and more specifically, what I want to share with you in this blog. I thought about my experiences at last year's Grace Hopper conference, about my experiences as co-founder and external affairs executive of WISE (Women in Science and Engineering), and about my experiences as a teaching assistant. I finally figured out what I'd like to share with you in this blog. I'd like to tell you how going to last year's Grace Hopper conference has changed my life.

The 2008 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing was the very first conference I attended. I went with three of my fellow executive members of WISE. We were passionate women in the preliminary stages of rebuilding this group and this conference was the perfect way to start us off. This is what I personally got from it:

I got to know my team members on a more personal level. Ultimately, I think this discouraged any development of misunderstandings between us and made me realize that we need each other's support. I remember we arrived early and spent an entire day just exploring Keystone resort. I remember we talked all night about boys.

I realized just how many awesome women there are in technical fields around the world and that we really are very valuable. I realized that it's normal that I sometimes feel like a fraud in my field and that I am not the only one who worries about balancing family life with work life. I think this was the most important thing I needed to know if I was going to rebuild WISE.

I learned that to get what you want you need to ask, ask, and ask again. And if you don't hear 'no' enough then you're not asking for enough. This is a huge reason why our group ended up getting a lot of help and funding. I remember how shocked our faculty adviser was when she heard that the dean of engineering accepted our budget proposal. Even she thought we were asking for too much.

I remember the climax of the trip. It was the last day of the conference and all the women were sitting in one big room. We were asked to talk about what we've learned. By this time my head was spinning and I felt like a nobody compared to these women. I felt even more helpless when one woman stood up and said that she learned that you can't have everything. Then an older woman stood up and said something that I will never forget. She said that you can have everything, just not all at the same time. To this day I truly believe that this woman's advice is what keeps me going. I wish I remembered who said that as I would love to thank her for sharing her wisdom.

Attending this conference convinced me that networking is extremely important if you want to get ahead. One problem though, I am an introvert. I realized this so I decided to take on the role as external affairs executive of WISE. I am very thankful I did. After much practice, I can now play the role of an extrovert, but I still need my alone time to recharge my batteries.

I learned about mentoring. I almost didn't go to that session because I thought to myself: what good could I possibly be as a mentor? But thank goodness I did because I ended up doing a lot of mentoring through WISE. I sure didn't realize I was signing up for that job, but thankfully I love mentoring and I've also gotten some pretty good feedback about it too.

A panel discussion about women in leadership taught me that you won't get anywhere if you don't take risks. There is also an African Proverb that states that smooth seas do not make a skillful sailor.

It was also made clear to me that perfectionism has two faces. Many times it's worth it to take the time to get the extra quality, but there are cases when it's not worth it. Perfectionism is still a big issue for me as I like to do everything to the best of my abilities, but I'm only human.

My Hopper position showed me that the best way to meet new people at a conference, especially if you are an introvert, is to volunteer to help out. I met more people in an hour of working as a Hopper than an hour of walking around at the conference.

And last but not least, I learned that if there are many outreach programs in your local community, it is probably more beneficial to join forces with them than to start a new one. And personally, I'm tired of all the clutter in the world. It's discouraging when you're searching for something specific and you end up with a bunch of useless information. Clutter is something I've thought about a lot.

I'd love to hear how last year's conference changed your life. Please feel free to comment on this post with some points of your own. And if this will be your first time at the conference, let us know what you think will benefit you the most and what you are looking forward to. See you all at the conference!

Why Valerie's glad she went to the Grace Hopper Conference in '08 and can't wait for this year

Last year's Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing was such an amazing experience for me, that I can't wait to attend again this year!

There is something almost magical about being surrounded by technical women. I didn't have to worry for one second about sounding too nerdy or about asking questions about something I didn't understand. At this conference I felt an unparalleled sense of belonging.

I spent some time working at the Sun Microsystems' informational booth, which was an incredible way to connect with students and other women in the industry who were interested in the technologies I've worked so closely with over the last decade. I'll be around there again this year, so please stop by and hear about the work I've been doing in the field of computer security over the last year.

This conference has such a great balance of technical content and soft skills that I don't feel overwhelmed by either aspect at the end of the day. In fact, I can't wait to get together with other attendees in the evening to hear about sessions I missed and share my own experiences from the day.

Last year's conference was intense, educational and life changing, that I cannot imagine for one second missing this year's event. Hope to see you all there! I'll be the woman with the laptop...

oh, wait, unlike other conferences, that won't be enough to identify me by. :-)

Valerie Fenwick

GHC 2008: Reflections

The conference is over and all of us are eagerly looking forward to the one next year at Tucson. In the meantime, I am sure you must have reflected back on your experience of GHC08 and noted down the goals you achieved or even the ones who could not achieve this year, but hope to do so next year. Would you like to share some of your experiences with us?

Let me offer another choice too! What did you particularly like about this year's GHC? What were the key points you took away from this conference? Contribute and help others learn from you!

Confessions of a Woman Developer: Microsoft, IBM, and Intel - The Experience of One

After being inspired by the stories of so many women at Grace Hopper, I created a post to share my industry experiences at Microsoft, IBM, and Intel.
http://blogs.msdn.com/springboard/archive/2008/10/13/confessions-of-a-woman-developer-microsoft-ibm-and-intel-the-experience-of-one.aspx

GHC08: Final Night

What a fantastic conference this has been. Unlike many other conferences I've attended, I seem to have no downtime. I'm constantly networking, attending sessions, blogging... and this year, fighting an uncooperative dying laptop. The energy here is fantastic, the balance of technical talks with "soft skills" is perfect. I only wish we all had more time together, that the sessions were longer, and the breaks were longer (for more networking). Of course, that would only be possible if the conference itself were longer... but a woman can dream, can't she?

I staffed the Sun booth yesterday morning, fielding all sorts of questions on OpenSolaris, Solaris Security, types of jobs we do at Sun, opportunities for students and just general questions about what Sun does. I enjoy what I do here, so getting an opportunity to talk about it was a true pleasure. If I missed any of you at the booth, please send me an email or drop me a comment here.

While here, I got to meet so many students, I think I even met all of the students and faculty from Purdue as well. I really enjoy hearing about the new research and areas of focus. The conference is only 50% students, though, so I also met so many inspiring career women.

Tonight Sun hosted a small private reception for the Sun employees and some outstanding women we all met throughout the conference. It was great to talk more in depth with these women, but again it seemed we just did not have enough time as we all rushed off for dinner provided by Google and Microsoft. Yum!

In addition to healthy, delicious food and cute t-shirts (Microsoft's t-shirts being made from bamboo and organic cotton - yay, Microsoft!) we again had DANCING! Imagine hundreds of women (and about 5 men) line dancing. Truly a site to behold. Unfortunately, I didn't bring the cable for my camera, but hopefully photos will be uploaded soon. It was quite a site to see!

Now I'm tired and need to start sorting through my stuff to see what I can fit in my suitcase. All the giveaways in the bag this year were really good, and anything folks didn't want someone has been collecting to give to charity.

Until next year :-)

Valerie Fenwick

The Imposter Panel: Another Post

Panelists: Kori Inkpen (Microsoft Research), Maria Klawe (Harvey Mudd College), Mary Czerwinski (Microsoft Research), Tiffani Williams (Texas A&M University), Tessa Lau (IBM Almaden Research Center)

I've heard about the Imposter Syndrome before, but was intrigued by this panel consisting of especially successful computer scientists. As it turned out, that was their point: almost everyone feels like a fraud at times. The huge crowd attending the session provided further support for this hypothesis. The session was a lot of fun, as each of the panelists introduced herself as an imposter and shared her experiences with both humor and sincerity.

To summarize, some of the times when the panelists feel/felt like imposters include:
* In new situations where they don't fit in yet, especially when doing things "successful people" do or women don't often do. (It was interesting to note that the first imposter experience for several panelists was in graduate school.)
* When asked to take responsibilities they don't feel qualified for.
* When surrounded by senior people.
* When they see other people working much harder.

Some tips they gave for getting over (or surviving despite) the imposter feeling are:
* Believe in yourself and the things you excel at. Remember your past successes, not your failures, and be proud of them. Speak up for yourself.
* Act like you have confidence; pretend to be competent; keep bluffing it!
* Surround yourself with people who believe in you and support you, and don't hesitate to support and help others yourself. If necessary, tell people you respond well to encouragement.
* Realize that only you can make yourself feel like an imposter. In that sense, you are the creator of your own experience, so don't give that control to anyone else. Don't let other people make you feel like a fraud.
* Work hard! And have fun at the same time.
* Listen well, especially in the first few months of a new job or situation.
* Take calculated risks that make you stand out in a good way.
* Practice!!
* Accept self-doubt as part of who you are. It keeps us humble and helps us help each other.

The main point to remember is that you are not alone. I'm with you. :) And if that's not enough, so are all the other people who were in this session!

GHC08: Unofficial blog: The Imposter Panel

I'm sitting in the Imposter Panel, though not an official blogger for this particular session, I am just overwhelmed by the sheer number of people in here. It's great to know thta I'm clearly not the only one that often feels like an imposter in various technical situations. These women on the panel, in addition to all being very funny, are all very insightful. They are all so very accomplished, yet they al feel like (or have felt like) imposters at one time or another.

Dr. Williams made a great comment: "I am the creator of my own experience."

Essentially, nobody ever told her she was an imposter, she was telling herself she was. So, she decided to stop telling herself that, and her confidence gets better & better every day.
The entire panel was wonderful - I just wish there were more hours in the day to attend sessions at Grace Hopper. They all seem to end too soon.

My computer woes have gotten worse and worse - now my networking driver is failing to attach, the wired connection is working, so I assume this is an additional hardware issue. Oh, and the CPU is throwing errors now, too. So, that brand new laptop has become a very expensive, slow to boot, word processor (does "vi" count as word processing software?). One of the fanstastic Sun recruiters lent me her laptop, and I ran off to the imposter session, desperate to upload my last blog from my thumb drive. Alas, this session was so crowded, I couldn't obtain an IP address! But, small wonders keep happening at this converence - a wonderful woman sitting next to me offered me her laptop, where I'm blogging from right now.

Valerie Fenwick

GHC08: Women in the Brave New World of Open Source

This was my first time speaking at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, and it was so exciting! I had just met most of the other panelists yesterday (didn't meet Stormy Peters until lunch today), and found it was so cool to find all the things we had in common and just as interestingly, all the differences we had in experiences, opinions and careers. The panel went really well - the more we talked, the more ideas we all had that we wanted to share. It was great sharing my eperiences with working on OpenSolaris with others, particularly the students. I hope between the OpenSolaris bite-sized bugs, the Linux "janitorial" work and the Google Summer of Code that we will gain many new women in the world of open source after this conference. I wish we'd had more time, and do hope to hear more from the students that were there as well as the other women in industry. Together we can learn and discover more in the world of computing. This is not the official blog, just my experiences being on the panel. More later...

Valerie Fenwick

GHC08: Climbing the Technical Ladder: Obstacles and Solutions for Mid-Level Technical Women

Caroline Simard (Anita Borg Institute of Technology) and Andrea Henderson (CalState Northridge) presented a new study done by ABI and the Clayman Institute at Stanford University on men and women in the high tech industry in the Silicon Valley at 7 hight tech companies.

Ms. Simard started off the presentation with the broad statement that diversity is good for business and social tasks, which has been backed up by research study after research study. And while it has been shown that women control 80% of the consumer spending, men are still designing 90% of technical products. More frighteningly, women only make up 13% of the board of directors of Fortune 500 companies and less than 5% of the executives.

The research study they did found that men are more likely to be in a senior postion than women (24% vs 10%), even though men and women surveyed had nearly the same distribution of higher level degrees.

Ms. Henderson then continued the talk to let us know that women are more likely to make decisions like delaying having children (30% of women vs 18% of men) in order to advance their careers, or forgo having children all together (9% of women vs 3.5% of men). Another odd statistic out of this study was that the majority of women in high tech careers also have a partner in high tech (68.5%).

The presentation then went on to perceptions of success, covering what men and women considered to be the top attributes of success and then self assessment of how many of those attributes they think they have. One big noted attribute is that women believe you must work long hours in order to be successful (a belief that the men in the survey did not agree with), but don't believe they can meet those needs. Such self discrepencies can actually be a big barrier to success all on its own.

Women in high tech companies really want to see more investment by the company in corporate development on the job (as opposed to relying on the employee to do it in their "spare time"), make mentoring a part of the corporate culture and fix the wage gap. Ms. Simard notes that it is just not true that women don't care about financial rewards and being paid fairly for their work. Their survey showed that women care just as much about health benefits, financial rewards and salary as their male counterparts.

The survey showed that some of the most important things to high tech women was for the company to invest in professional development on the job, mentoring to be a part of the corporate culture and to see the wage gap corrected.

Discussion came around one of my favorite books, Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide. Apparently the authors did a follow up study and discovered that women who negotiated were more likely to be seen in a negative light by both men and women. Ms. Henderson & Ms. Simard noted that there was a lot of research finding that gender bias is very ingraned in both men and women, so as women we actually need to work at this ourselves and make sure we are aware when we are making such judgements. Ms. Simard noted that women who are most successful are able to "tune" their assertiveness depending on the situation and whom they are talking to.

Valerie Fenwick

Web 2.0 Session: Online Social Networks - Impact to Our Careers

Panelists: Kimberly Blessing (PayPal), Stephanie Liu (Google), Susan Miller (Sun Microsystems), Jessica Mitchell (Cisco) [moderator].

In this panel, a number of social networking tools were mentioned, including Flickr, Last.fm, LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace,Twitter, blogging, Orkut, FriendFeed, Plaxo, wikis, and virtual worlds. Not everyone uses all these, but social networking and having an online presence are increasingly important, especially in some areas. Companies and professionals use tools to reach out to customers, generate interest about products, or bring in traffic to their website. A person's use of social networks also ranges from being connected as part of her job, to networking, to staying in touch with friends and family. This raises the questions of what information about ourselves to make available, and how.

People's answers for "how" varied according to their own preferences. LinkedIn was recommended as more tailored towards a job search, but some mentioned having to be on Facebook because so is everyone else. Micro-blogging was considered great for mass communication, needing less effort than email. Aggregating services like FriendFeed were also suggested. One result is that your network of people acts as a filter for information -- you can check their updates rather than the news, to find out what's really important to your community.

Regarding what to make available, one goal is to create a brand image of yourself, yet still retain a personal touch. Thus it helps to focus on your area of expertise but also include some personal details. So what about separating your professional and social lives? While people seeing you as a real person beyond work can strengthen connections, there is also the danger of too much information. One can address this by having limited profile access for some contacts, or separate work and social profiles.

Other privacy issues also came up. For instance, you may want to protect your name in the internet space by creating an account on a new service before someone else can impersonate you there. It's also possible that an information source you're following is actually an impersonator. Furthermore, once you put information about yourself online, you no longer have control over it (beyond some amount of deleting or blocking). Friends may choose to publicly re-distribute your personal information, and it is quite possible for "everyone in the world" to know it eventually.

This last issue is my biggest concern with social networking. I see a conflict between needing to have some online presence freely available to prospective employers, and not wanting the rest of the world's strangers to have any information at all. If would-be employers don't find you on the web before formally being in your network, you may be dismissed as nobody. But any information you put up can be swallowed by questionable parties with loads of free time, and used in ways you had not imagined. As far as I can tell, there's no real solution. To paraphrase one panelist, you can't really live your life in that much fear. So perhaps the only thing to do is to find a balance that works for you. On that note, I'm curious about what balance works for you, and how you handle this conflict. Thoughts?

Multi-Robot Intelligence

This talk was given by Manuela M. Veloso from the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University. Since I've always wanted an Aibo and even worked on a robotics competition last year, there was no dilemma for me about which talk I would attend!

The talk started with some examples of robots at work in CMU: the Roboceptionist, robots helping the elderly, and even dog and humanoid robots playing soccer! Dr. Veloso then discussed what makes a robot: integrated intelligence. Basically, there are three components:

• perception: the processing of sensory data
• cognition: learning and action selection
• action: the motion and manipulation of the robot.

Multi-robot soccer was invented to help scientists work on the multi-robot problem, in which robots perform a task by working together. We saw an example of "Small-Size" Robot Soccer, which has 10 robots and a golf ball, with five robots per team. It was neat to watch the video of the robots, called the CMDragons, actually playing soccer! Dr. Veloso's major breakthrough was to include teamwork in the game-play, in the form of passing. She then explained some of the details behind the robots' visual signal interpretation.

Dr. Veloso also gave some examples of soccer strategy for robots. She showed a video where the robots completed four passes and a chip-kick before scoring. The funny thing is, this had never been observed in the lab prior to the competition! Dr. Veloso also showed videos of Aibos playing soccer and explained the difference between the teamwork problem when the robots can and can't communicate with each other.

Did you attend Dr. Veloso's talk? Are you interested in robotics or working on these problems in robotics? Let us know!

Mary Lou Jepsen's Keynote

Mary Lou Jepsen is the CEO of Pixel Qi, a for-profit spin-off from the One Laptop per Child project. Mary Lou began her talk by discussing children in developing companies and why giving them laptops increases their opportunities in life. Children and teachers reported that they love their laptops, with one child saying "I love my laptop more than my life".

Challenges to providing laptops such as OLPC are:

• price: needs to be low
• low power: many places in the developing world often don't have power sources that most laptops require
• network: these places often aren't connected to the internet either
• other infrastructure
• lifetime: it will need to last
• distribution: how to get the laptops to the children/schools?

One other interesting thing Mary Lou showed us was that GDP climbs when teledensity, or the density of cellphones in a population, increases.

Mary Lou also discussed some of the technical challenges, especially with respect to power consumption. Using a Linux OS is 160th the size of Vista, so using that required less hardware to run. They also found a way to turn off the CPU in 1/10th of a second, and wake it back up in the same time with a keyboard event or packet from the internet.

One major problem the laptops faced when first mass-produced was that they didn't ever come out of hibernation! Luckily they were able to fix the problem within three weeks, and since then, about 1 million have been deployed, with millions more ready to go.

The price of the laptop is expected to drop to $100 by next year. I've always wanted an OLPC, but haven't got one yet. Do you have an OLPC? If so, what are you using it for? Do you like it? Let us know in the comments below - maybe you can convince some of us to buy one!

Wendy Hall: ACM & Women in Computing

Wendy Hall is the first person outside of North America to be elected President of the ACM. One thing she announced during her talk is that the ACM is going to be elevating the ACM-W within the organization this year, which is exciting news. They also have an ACM-W Ambassadors program which is really neat. This year there will be an ACM Women's Council, chaired by Elaine Weyuker. The ACM Women's Council will give us a voice at the top levels of the ACM, which is also really cool.

I'm curious if you are a member of ACM, or if you've participated in ACM-W. If so, what is the best part about these organizations for you?

Student Groups Networking: Come Integrate Your Ideas Today!

Hi everyone! Hope you're having a great time at the conference so far!

A bit of shameless self-promotion again! Our BOF session (entitled "Integrating Ideas: Together We Can Build a Better World") is today at 5:10 and we'd really love to see you there. Come contribute to our discussion on student groups, whether you are part of one or would like to be! We truly believe that by helping each other build these groups and by sharing our ideas, we can build a better world.

We'd also like to mention that we are building a collaborative website for sharing ideas post-conference. It's nowhere near complete and we need you to help make that happen! If you would like to collaborate with us and share your ideas, send an email to: kjtsouka AT gmail DOT com. If you don't want to become a site member at this time, you can also leave a message on our forum to ask questions or give answers. Whichever you choose, we'd love to hear from you!

GHC08: Awards ceremony and DANCING!

There was no awards banquet this year, as the Grace Hopper conference took a more casual approach to the awards reception. Dinner was served buffet style in advance, which nice as we all got a chance to actually pay attention as awards were given out, instead of attempting to balance between eating & listening to the presenters. I really enjoyed the switch!

I have never seen an awards ceremony with so many heart fealt hugs and ear to ear grins. The wonderful stories told about Grace Hopper and Anita Borg were fascinating to listen to. It was cool to see a fellow Gaslighter Alum, Elisa Camahort Page, and her colleagues win the Anita Borg Social Impact Award for their work with BlogHer. I especially liked the acceptance speech from Elaine Weyuker for the Anita Borg Technical Leadership Award.

I was lucky enough to be entertained again by David Garibaldi, who dazzled us as he did 6 foot portraits of both Grace Hopper and Anita Borg in less than 10 minutes each (perfectly coordinated to music). I saw him last time at the Professinal Business Women of California conference in April.

The evening then turned to dessert and dancing - what a fantastic combination! Though, I will admit, dancing is challenging at altitude! :-)

Valerie Fenwick

Confessions of a Woman Developer: 4 Steps to Navigate Grace Hopper

Hilary Pike blogs about how to navigate the crowd at Grace Hopper. http://blogs.msdn.com/springboard/archive/2008/10/02/confessions-of-a-woman-developer-4-steps-to-navigate-grace-hopper.aspx