2006 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women and Computing Keynote Speakers

It is no great feat to place 1000 women in a room. It is however, somewhat of an accomplishment to place 1000 women with computing professions in a room. This task was realised during the 2006 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women and Computing. I don't think I've ever known 100 women let alone 1000 and never would I have believed there would be this many females doing computer science.

But guess what? There are! And many of them have come together in celebration of past, present and future generations of women and their accomplishments in fields where they are disadvantaged.

The women I met at this event were truly inspirational. The keynote speakers were definitely well selected and as I type, their voices still ring in my head with the messages they send.

On day one, Shirly Tilghman spoke about how when she closes her eyes, she can see women in engineering disciplines. This is how she differs from men referees because when they close their eyes, they cannot mentally picture females in those positions. This limits the candidate pool. Where as women can broaden their views to include women in the vision.

On day two, Sally Ride suggested the only reason women were not choosing engineering careers was because of the conditioning and pressures of the male dominated society. She experienced first hand the reverse of the roles when she became the first female astronaut. Due to the large amount of media surrounding her flight, 5 year old boys wondered if little boys could grow up to become astronauts. To create such questioning implies the media can produce enormous amounts of pressure on how society can perceive certain events.

Finally, on day three Helen Greiner gave us some insight into her company and the journey towards marketing her creations. Anything is possible in computer science and these women prove it.