GHC19 Travel Scholarship Experience
The Grace Hopper Celebration 2019 was from October 1st until October 4th 2019. It is the world’s largest gathering of women computer scientist and technologists. The final count had over 26,000 women technologists and allies from around the world that participated in this year’s Celebration. It was held at the Orange County Convention Centre and it will be held there again in 2020.
Disclaimer as I love these things:
First of all, how did I apply to win this opportunity? It all started in June 2019. I received a link that said Google Interns had the chance to attend the Grace Hopper Conference in Orlando, Florida. However, at the time of the GHC application, it was only opened for current interns. As I will be interning at the Google Down Under office (which is Sydney btw) in December 2019. I would ask about it anyway!
So, How did that go? Well, it went kind of like the picture below but via email. A month goes by, and I got an email saying that I could apply as I am a future intern.
So then….I got an email on my birthday, which is in August, and it said:
Dear #$%!, We are pleased to inform you that you have been selected as a Google Intern travel scholarship recipient for the 2019 Grace Hopper Celebration in Orlando, FL! We hope you’re excited and look forward to seeing you there.
That is fantastic! Until I read the name and realised it was not my name. So, what did I do? I emailed them back saying: Oh, I am super pleased to have received this on my birthday. What a great birthday present!
One thing which was awesome about this award is that they arranged flights and accommodation. Sadly, once I arrived at Orlando my roomie was feeling sick so she could not stay with me. Which I ended up meeting and she turned out to be the coolest gal ever! The awesome part was I got two beds for the whole time I was there.
Day 1 at GHC
The awesome thing about Google organising these travel awards is that you will meet fellow countrywomen and other WTM Scholars. I was fortunate enough to hang out with other 2018 WTM Scholars the whole time at GHC 19. Also, I was one of two NZ women tech makers scholars of 2018. I was fortunate enough to see the other kiwi while we were at the salad bar at the resort. Unfortunately, I missed out on the first day of the conference due to some sudden flight changes.
I stayed for the VIP keynote speakers and before they commenced on stage, I was pulled from the audience to do a live interview. The interviewer asked me a few questions:
- What is my name? — Tash
- Where am I from? — From NZ
- What Swag am I after in this conference? — A USB and a Charger
- And my #Wewill campaign message — hmmmm
I am quite a nervous person so when I said my #WeWill statement it came out as #IWill. So my statement was:
I will get more women into cybersecurity!
The awesome part of day 1 is watching all the strong role models that are doing awesome things in the community.
The Keynote speakers were:
- Aicha Evans (CEO from ZooX)
- Ana Roca Castro (CEO from Genius Plaza)
- Fei-Fei Li (Inaugural Sequoia Professor in the CS Dept and Co-Director of Stanford’s Human-Centered AI Institute Stanford University)
#We will ignite the genius in every child — Ana Roca Castro
Ana Roca Castro from Genius Plaza hit home for me. The work she was doing with tech and translating languages (including indigenous languages) with Genius Plaza thought about my awesome teammates at OMGTech! who work on implementing more Te Reo Maori into STEAM.
Then I watched the Abie Awards ceremony honouring all the awesome women in technology.
- Fei-Fei Li was the Technical Leadership Abie Award winner for her work towards Human-Centered AI.
- Jhillika Kumar was the Student of Vision winner for her amazing work founding a start-up in college called AxisAbility which helps individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
- Dr. Natalya Bailey was the winner of the Emerging Technologist Abie Award (I do not know how to explain her work but it was very technical). She also introduced a diversity program for hiring women and minorities that have been underrepresented in the industry.
- Dr. Nimmi Ramanujam was the Social Impact Abie Award winner for her research around women’s cancer. Specifically, focuses on designing innovations that enable complex services to be accessible at the primary care level for cancer prevention.
- Yamilée Toussaint Beach was the Educational Innovation Abie Award winner which is in honour of A.Richard Newton. Yamilée uses dance to inspire and support young women of colour from low-income backgrounds to develop the confidence, skills, and awareness necessary to obtain STEM degrees.
Day 2 at GHC
I call this part, getting lost in the Career Fair!
When I first started registering for GHC talks from little ole NZ. I was thinking that I was going to be sticking to this tight schedule of following each talk that I was on my schedule. Then I realised I cannot follow physical directions and just got lost and ended up at the Career Fair with my partners in crime #APAC WTM18 (Pakistan, Japan and NZ).
The Career Fair had over 200+ companies and I did my best over the few days that I was at GHC to speak with each one. Even though this part is very USA centric it is amazing to see that most of the companies had sent out their engineers to do the talking and interviewing. If you are going to the career fair, be aware, be very aware! You must bring the following:
- Print outs of your CV (1–2 pages or just 1 double-sided page).
- Business cards.
- A phone to scan into their booth.
- A bag for all the swag (Because I am telling you there are a lot of Swag involved).
The Career Fair is quite intense and it can be overwhelming. We ended up leaving on the first bus each day of the conference because it was physically exhausting and like I said overwhelming.
Later on in the night, Google arranged a secret party for all the Google Interns. I won’t be able to show much but from this picture, you could guess the theme.
Day 3 at GHC
Day 3 was the day I had the most fun! Everything was finishing up and sadly I could not get into any of the talks on the last day. I enjoyed the poster session as this was a great opportunity for people to present the areas they were passionate about in a poster.
Vaishnavi was great, as a Mom that has a child with a disability she discussed her issues about returning to work as an engineer. Vaishnavi discussed her challenges around management and being talked down on by co-workers. She fights for equal opportunities for parents and discusses the lack of support for Moms and Dads at Big Tech Companies and Start-Ups.
Later on in the evening, they had a closing keynote, a raffle where people got to win Apple Laptops and Lyft vouchers. They had catered snacks and non-alcoholic drinks and alcoholic drinks. Plus activities like rock climbing and a lot of dancing.
To sum up,
GHC is a huge conference and there are many talks and new areas that you should see. Whatever the reason why you go to GHC, you will find something new and inspiring. For me, it was having talks with the computer science lecturers, academics and engineers during the Career Fair and Poster Sessions. They all had amazing stories and it opened my eyes to see what organisations are out there. Even though I said my #WeWill statement as #IWill, I already think I am on my way in accomplishing that goal. During my time at GHC, I had already co-founded an organisation called NZNWS (NZ Network for Women in Security) the goal is to connect all women in security, allies of women in security or interested in security. This includes areas in physical security, cybersecurity, data governance and compliance.
References and Support:
Please feel free to check out this link if you want to watch the conference online.
Please feel free to check out the Anita B.Org if you want to stay connected with the Anita B.Org community.
Please feel free to check out the GHC2020 Facebook community if you want to stay connected with other GHC attendees.
If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn or Twitter.
