The Google 2006 Australia Anita Borg Scholarship

And the winner is... me. After I thought I received the Google scholarship to go to the 2006 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women and Computing, I emailed Alistair Moffat to say "thank-you" for telling me about the scholarship opportunity. (I write "I thought" because I didn't actually get the Google scholarship. I thought I did because that's what I applied for and I received money for what I applied for. But I later discovered while I was at the conference that the money actually came from NFS/Grace Hopper/someone other than Google. But funding is funding, wherever it comes from and I got the opportunity to travel). Now, being the top bloke that Alistair is, he said congrats and told me about another women in computing opportunity: The Google 2006 Australia Anita Borg Scholarship. So I thought why not. I'll apply closer to the deadline.

The Sunday before it was due (it was due on a Friday), I read the applicant criteria and application requirements. I needed two character references and I needed to answer a series of essay type questions. They essay questions were not a problem, but the thought of extracting a character reference in 5 days or less out of Rao was somewhat of a concern. Rao is a very busy man and he was not one of those people that say write me a letter and I'll sign it (which is good because I don't like doing things like that). In the end, Rao made a time for me at 7pm on the Thursday where we worked on it together. He is one busy man.

My other character reference was from Rita Manesis who is the coordinator of SALP, a leadership program that supports volunteer work in the community. I participated in the program in 2004 and I still do some of the volunteer work that I started in the program. I'm buying both of these people a plant for Christmas or something.

So anyway, that was the application process and while I was in San Diego, I receieved an email informing me that I was a finalist for the scholarship and I was going to Sydney for a retreat with the other finalists. There was 16 finalists in total, 8 ugrad and 8 postgrad selected from over 60 applicants. I had my two phone interviews and last week, Neetu Vacin rang up to tell me that I was the postgrad winner for Australia.

I got back from Sydney on Saturday where I spent time with the other finalists and Google people at Hilton and the Google Sydney office. The other women I met were incredible, in the accomplishments, in their intelligence and in their abilities. But what's more amazing is the fact that I was picked as the winner. There is one postgrad winner and one ugrad winner. There is one postgrad winner in all of Australia and that winner is me. Quite an amazing feeling, really. This is also the first year the Anita Borg scholarship has come to Australia. So I'm the first. Awesome.

Now all I have to do is some real research to justify all my awards. Hmmm.

Also see: some hints on the application process.