Your Event Guide to Grace Hopper 2015

I know, less than a week, AAAHH! I'm so excited too, and the more I see your reactions, even more excited I get! Another thing that increases inversely proportional to the time till #GHC15 is, the number of events!

The GHC schedule is amazing, technically and socially mesmerizing, but it seems more awesomeness is on the way like previous years. Some companies, universities and special interest groups organize their own events and parties! So... I will try to be your party guide, girls!

Note: The events listed here are all unofficial ones, please check the conference schedule for the official events.

Let's start with a brief summary of last year. We have been to so many events that I apologize from the start that I'll only mention my top three unofficial parties. To start with, third place goes to Amazon (and Kiva), with their refreshing Amazonian cocktail:) Second place (unfortunately) goes to Pandora, unfortunately because that was one of the best conference parties I've been to. They closed a roof-top bar, turned it into an open-air disco, with awesome Pandora music. They also had delicious food and so useful swags that I still use (like little Pandora power stations!). Oh, and they also invented their special pinkish cocktail  (Pandora mist? I don't remember its name), And the first place, goes to: Pinterest. The most creative party I've ever seen! We've done our first dream-catchers, near "a mountain of cheese", with unlimited alcohol. There was also a photo-booth, swag, more food, and everything you can and cannot think to turn a regular place into an incredible party!

Ok, enough with the last year, let's start this years list! Click on the company names to access the event details.

1. Pixar:  Curious about Pixar or how woman in tech side of Pixar is producing your favorite animations? Well, join us then:) (Yes, I highly recommend this one. And no, I'm not biased..:p) 
2. Pinterest: I bet it will again be an awesome party, I highly recommend having a look at "A Night with Pinterest" :)
3. Women TechMakers: It seems like something fantastic is coming up. Stay tuned! 
4. Facebook: Instead of one big event, Facebook divided the teams into Research, DevOps, and others; and meeting in breakfasts, brunches, and lunches.
5. Uber: LadyEng in Uber await you for games, food and networking! 
6. Twitter: WomEng team of Twitter invites you to a panel followed by a Twitter party (following the special cocktail tradition that I mentioned before). 
7. Github: A creative event comes from Github! Meet at Patchwork Houston for a workshop to learn and dig into Git! 
8. Pandora: Not sure if it will be as heart-warming as last year, but give it a try.
9. Instacart: Come, socialize and party with Instacart!  
10. LinkedIn: WomenConnect at LinkedIn invites you to another networking event. 
11. Square: This time you're invited to a breakfast! You'll be having coffee, breakfast, swag and fun time with Sarah Friar (CTO). 
12. CMU: Carnegie Mellon University calls you for desserts!
13. Axon & TASER: Interestingly, scholars, food and party time! 
14. Cisco: Cisco also has a networking dinner. 
15. Pros: Another networking reception by BLAZE at Pros.  
16. Women in Technology: Houston: Another panel accompanied with food and surprises, that aim to strengthen our connection. 
17. Salesforce: GirlyGeeks is organizing a wine event at a roof top, sounds like an awesome atmosphere to socialize:) 
18. Mastercard: Another reception to enjoy, this time by Mastercard. 
19. Career Incubator: A night of Martinis&Mentors, sounds interesting! 
20. iOS: Are you an ios developer? Then join the crowd and make apps come true!

As a last note, I would suggest to register for the events from the links. But don't worry if it's closed, or full, or invite-only. You never know who you'll meet with or where you'll be going to, in #ghc15 :) If there is an event or a party of your dream place, go to their booths to ask about it, or just learn the address and go! Remember that all those efforts are for you, just for you:) I'll keep updating the list as soon as I hear about more events. If you know of an event, leave it in the comments with the link, so that I'll add it to the list.

Hope to dance with you all girls! I'll end this very informal post with a photo from last year's official party, thanks to Google:) Have fun!

Ilke Demir

Post syndicated from Over The Heels and Far Far Away.

Digital Healthcare at Technology Crossroads

The complexity and costs associated with the current U.S. healthcare system, although screaming for standardization, cross-platform integration and extreme reinvention, probably won't happen overnight and not without a fight.

Panelists from Google, Intuit, Kaiser Permanente and Symantec shared their companies' immediate and longer range challenges of implementing technology solutions for the rapidly changing healthcare needs of consumers.

The big challenge is moving doctors and hospitals from paper-based systems to informatics and digital imaging of patient information. But change is imminent with the soaring costs of healthcare and with consumers pushing for more control of their personal health records (PHR).

Tammy Neely, Northwest and Hawaii BI Leader for Kaiser Permanente, spoke about the challenges of helping doctors learn how to use technology better and the benefits to everyone when they do. Storage challenges of electronic medical records notwithstanding--8 terabytes on 600+ systems--the benefits of distilling this information has resulted in a triple win for Kaiser: improved patient quality scores, cost savings of $100M and streamlined processes that now make "doctoring fun again".

Ongoing requests by consumers of its popular Quicken product led Intuit to develop Quicken Health, a product that helps users decipher "medical speak" and reconcile doctor and hospital bills along with the ease of paying online. "We wanted to empower consumers to monitor and manage their own health care costs," says Product Manager, Christina Banta, who made a career shift after a series of hospital volunteer jobs led her to see that the collection of patient data and backend systems didn't flow well for patients/customers.

According to Lisa Rom, Symantec Sr. Product Marketing Manager, 30 percent of the world's data by 2012 will be digital imaging. Symantec is looking to lower the cost of storage by moving digital imaging into the cloud instead of data centers, and thus passing the savings along to doctors and hospitals for medical research and patient improvements instead of storage costs.

Google's footprint into the world of healthcare comes via its Google Health site where patient control over individual data provides consumers with the ability to track their overall health and wellness. The site provides you with the means for aggregating your own information and monitoring the trends of your health over time.


So, Who Owns the Data?

Google's Shirley Gaw shared the challenges faced by the company in offering a service where patients don't always own their health information. "Your PHR is part of your Electronic Medical Health Record (EMHR), but in many states this health data is not owned by you. In certain states you can't get your own health records except through your doctors."

Security and privacy issues associated with PHR vs. EMHR requires a trust factor between physician and patient and between hospitals and health partners. Today, many doctors are wary about making decisions based on incomplete info, concerned that patients will be able to change digital data.

According to Neely at Kaiser Permanente, it's a fallacy that paper-based records are more secure, since paper records get faxed all over the place all the time. Symantec's Rom indicated that one of the top areas of identity theft is health related, which is why health transport and encryption of digital imaging files are critical.

Unfortunately, the level of understanding and sophistication of systems and security isn't there yet--doctors still take CDs home and store patient information on personal laptops. So, even though the technology is available the adoption is not.


Top of Mind

According to the panelists, this is what keeps their companies up at night:

Intuit: The ability to acquire the data, how to bring it together, and aggregating financial info.

Symantec: Medical imaging that isn't tagged with patient data and cannot be easily mapped to the patient.

Kaiser Permanente: The Baby Boom and obesity.

Google: Providing a service where consumers don't own their own health data.