Florida here I come

I think I've just been told that I will be getting funding to go to the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing next year. It's part of my Anita Borg Scholarship. Omg woo. Meghan from Google just sent an email saying I will be getting my $5K in addition to support for the 2007 Grace Hopper Conference in Orlando, Florida.

Meeting industry research leaders

While I was away at the The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in San Diego, I received the opportunity to meet Gabby, our CA Lab head. I wasn’t too sure what to expect from this legendary research figure having never officially googled him. But from what I have heard of him from Tim, I expected a very brilliant man. Having become acquainted with our more local leader, Eugene, I somewhat expected a similar personality. Eugene’s presence demands military respect of the Russian variety with underlying tones of top secret weapon knowledge. Then he speaks and he somehow seems cuddly.

In relation to Eugene, Gabby is similar in that they are both of comparable height. This is where all physical resemblances end. After searching for Gabby with no luck for the first three quarters of the conference day one, I finally cornered him during Connie and Carrie’s presentation where Gabby was listening attentively in the front row. He was the only male in the room so I made a stab in the dark and guessed this was Gabby. It was pretty exciting, I was sitting in the same room as Gabby and I could see the back of his head.

After the presentation, I waited around to speak to the man himself and to Connie and Carrie as well. There were times when I just did not know what to say to Gabby but it was a nice experience to finally meet him. If you asked me what we had talked about, I would not be able to tell you. I was concentrating so hard that I don’t know what happened. We spoke for a total of three times throughout various times during the conference: once at the CA presentation session, once at dinner and once at the CA booth.

The CA member I became most familiar with while at the conference was Connie. I had given the opportunity to sit next to this pretty and intelligent individual after I was invited to eat at the CA table for the presentation dinner. My most memorable moment of Connie was when asked if she was vegetarian, she asked what the meal options were before responding. This is due to the fact that she was vegetarian but because Gabby made fun of her so much, she has slowly started to eat meat products. It also has to do with dietary intake but I find it amusing that Gabby has the ability to manage research facilities globally as well as convince long time vegetarians that chicken is tasty.

Both Gabby and Connie are coming to Australia early next year and I look forward to seeing both of them again. On conversation topics, I will be interested in CA research development and what other types of meat Connie is eating.

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.

Planning my Grace Hopper Trip

Early in May, Professor Alistair Moffat sent an email around informing postgraduate and later year students of a conference opportunity in San Diego for women in computing. This conference is The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. Google was offering a Global Community Scholarship to help students outside of the US attend the event. I thought this is something that I could potentially apply for.

The application was due on 1st June 2006 and I remembered to re-read Alistair’s email on the night of 27th May. I of course, was leaving the country at 5am on the morning of 29th May for Infoscale ’06. So instead of preparing for my presentation, I spent 28th May writing an essay about myself. This seemed to pay off as early in August, I was notified of being awarded a full scholarship to attend the 2006 Grace Hopper
Celebration of Women in Computing. Woo. 83 full scholarships were awarded out of 550 applicants. The odds weren’t bad but it’s still exciting to be accepted. Plus, I’ve never been to the states before so I’m fully excited. Yes, I just used the word, “fully”.

After the initial shock and making this face O_O, I realised that I now needed to book flights to the states. I’ve never had to plan a trip like this for myself before so the organisation itself was a learning experience.

I emailed the organisers of the event and received an email back informing me that I required a Visa. This was a bit worrying. Then I received an email asking if I was flying from China because another scholarship recipient was travelling from the China and wanted to know if I wanted to be her travel buddy. This was more worrying. Turns out they knew I was born in China and thought I might be in China right now. I guess I could have been.

After the initial confusion and reading fine print, I do not need a visa and I have no travel buddy. But at least I know the name of a girl who was born in the same country as me and has an interested in computer science. I look forward to meeting her in October.

I am leaving Australia on 28th September and returning 9th October. I will spend my time before the conference in Oakland, California, visiting a David Sun, very good friend at UC Berkeley. He is currently studying towards his PhD in Computer Science at Berkeley and is a very smart cookie. I’ve known him since I was 10 and he used to hate me because I use to channel surf too much when we watched TV together. Hopefully he is over how annoying I used to be and won’t mind too much that I will be hanging around him for the weekend.

I will fly into San Diego on the evening of 2nd October and spend the 3rd October in Tijuana. This decision is based on the fact that San Diego’s main attractions are the zoo and sea world. Shopping for a day in Mexico seems to be more appealing to me. I haven’t told my parents yet but I’m sure they will see the photos after I come back from Mexico.

The 4th-7th October will be dedicated to the conference. I look forward to meeting some awesome women of computing from around the world. It will definitely be an invaluable experience that I will never forget. I especially look forward to the ideas that will be presented to me by the various presenters.

Right after the conference, I will board a flight on the 7th October and arrive back in Melbourne on the 9th. I have tutorials that I have to teach on the 10th.

It is two weeks before I go and everything seems to be organised. I have my travel insurance, I’ve booked my accommodation and my flights have been paid for and confirmed. I have all the receipts I need for reimbursement at the conference. I hope I haven’t forgotten anything. I guess I’ll know in 2-3 weeks time.