When I imagined going to Grace Hopper, I had no idea of the scale of the event. This year’s celebration brings a record 8,000 attendees from 64 countries to Phoenix, Arizona for a three-day women in computing conference. The attendees come from all walks of life and all skill levels, and each one has a different story to tell about their experience with the gender equality gap in technology.
Day 1 of GHC14 united attendees with the first round of speakers including a keynote from Dr. Shaffi Goldwasser, a renowned computer scientists and Turing Award winner. The sessions here are all incredible and since I can’t make it to them all I’m looking forward to catching up with the ones I miss online. If you’re interested in following the live stream of the event, you can do so here. I’ll also be posting more detailed recaps of the ones I saw once I’m back home, for now I’ll stick to the recaps!
After the speaker sessions was the career fair, which placed the 8,000 attendees in front of a few hundred companies, a trade show-like opportunity for networking, learning about new companies, and swag collecting. Check out this photo of me with the late Grace Hopper!
Google’s booth was (expectedly) extraordinary, with the self-driving car and Diane von Furstenburg Glass taking the lead.
Microsoft also had an interesting and much more interactive booth, where attendees could build critters out of blocks, scan them with the Kinect for Windows (have you seen my post about the new sensor yet? Check it out on Microsoft’s Canadian Developer Connection blog!), and see them converted into graphical form, interacting with other attendees’ critters. The most interesting thing about this activity was that each critter’s personality was determined by the shape you made it in, and what colours you connected.
PS: My trip to Phoenix for the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing has been sponsored by Dalhousie University and Syncfusion, my official corporate partner! A HUGE thanks to both, I am so grateful.
Syncfusion is the enterprise technology partner of choice for Windows development, delivering a broad range of software frameworks and tools. Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, Syncfusion has more than 10,000 customers, including large financial institutions, Fortune 100 companies, and global IT consultancies. Find out more in my announcement post about our partnership, and find me at Grace Hopper to get your FREE software license!
