This past October, I had the privilege of attending the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in Houston, Texas. For me, and for many others I know, this was a life changing conference. The conference was a little shorter than a week, but was jam-packed with inspiring talks and an astounding expo.
I went on the trip with an amazing group that consisted of UIC’s women in computer science and a few professors. We woke up early Wednesday morning for the first keynotes of the conference. We arrived around 8am at Toyota Center and all we saw were long lines filled with women with huge smiles and high energy. We walked into a packed stadium with upbeat music and it was lit.
The keynote speeches played a large role in changing my perspective on the power of technology and women. The first speaker, Latanya Sweeney, made me realize how much of an impact students and beginners can make. Latanya is a professor at Harvard and the director and founder of the Data Privacy Lab among many other things. She spoke about how we live in a technocracy.
The part of her talk that really stood out to me was when she spoke about a class she taught at Harvard called “Data Science to Save The World” her mission was to help the helpers. In this class she expected each of the students to create a project to help change the world. She noticed that many students came up with revolutionary projects and was inspired and began the Journal of Technology Science. One student came up with a program that allowed for fraud detection in real time. Another created a program to detect price discrimination and found things like the Princeton Review price discriminates in areas with a majority of individuals of a specific ethnic background. Another student looked into Facebook Messenger’s feature where it would drop GPS locations after leaving a message, and he created a program to track people through that GPS location tag, and this caused Facebook to change this feature.
This talk left me in awe of the impact a group of students can have. These students were undergraduate students that were believed in and that’s all it took for them to create these world changing projects.
The next talk that really hit home for me was the talk by Ginni Rometty, the president and CEO of IBM. She spoke about how we’re in the era of cognitive and how the natural resource of today is data. She spoke about how IBM is using this data and Artificial Intelligence through Watson. This artificial intelligence has done things like understand a child’s learning and modify which sesame streets episodes to watch, act as a lawyer’s research assistant, help people in call centers answer complex questions, read medical papers and analyze scans of cancer tumors, and found 30% more of what doctors had found in patients.
People often told me that they wanted to pursue a career that would entail making a change and helping the world. Usually, when people speak of such careers they’re not referring to computer science. Latanya and Ginni highlighted a multitude of ways technology is not just changing the world, but helping people around the world. These talks made me realize that I too can help people and make this world a way better place by studying and pursuing a career in computer science.
On the Friday of the conference there were also keynotes speeches. On that day, the Chief Technology Officer of the Unites States, Megan Smith was a keynote speaker. She made it clear that women are not only welcome in tech, but are needed. In addition to her, Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, was one of the speakers and spoke about the gender wage gap and how to close it and mentioned how diversity should be a priority of all companies. One of the best parts of Friday’s keynote was the panel.
The panel included Mimi Valdez, the executive producer of Hidden Figures and the chief creative officer for Pharrell Williams, Jeanette Epps, an astronaut to visit space in April 2018, and Christina Deoja, an electrical engineer at the Johnson Space Center. The panel discussed how women were an integral part of many advancements in history, but were never mentioned. They also mentioned the importance of telling their stories as many are trying to do in the movie Hidden Figures.
At the expo I was able to speak to over 70 employers about opportunities for students. I learned a lot more about the application of the things I had been learning in school. I also learned all about the different and unique cultures of the many companies. One of the best parts of meeting with employers was undeniably the free swag they have. I took home a duffel bag filled with things ranging from chargers to t-shirts.
Aside from the talks and expo, I met women from all sorts of backgrounds both employers and students. Everyone I met had something special about them, whether it be a project they were currently working on or the huge smile that spread across their face. I was continuously inspired through every interaction. At the expo, I was even a part of breaking a Guinness World Record. Avanade had a mission to create a computer program with the most contributions in 24 hours, and I got to write a line that was included in that program. Grace Hopper left me feeling empowered and inspired.