In mid-October, 15,000 people gathered in Houston for the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (GHC).
For those who have never attended this conference, it is difficult to describe the inspiration that is GHC. Our world is changing rapidly. Technology influences every aspect of our lives. Fifteen thousand people from more than 80 countries who attended this year’s conference offered an amazing view into the incredible roles that women play in technology across the globe, and underscored the importance of building a diverse and inclusive environment in technology.
In previous posts (2012, 2014 and 2015 ), I offered my personal perspective as an attendee, but doing that again would be a disservice to the greatness of this event. GHC has become something much greater than one individual could capture.
As a co-chair for the Organizational Transformation track, I cannot overemphasize the value of this conference to HR professionals for building a diverse, technically adept workforce. A Skype attendee named Angela summarized it nicely with three key takeaways: "learning, inspiration and focus."
Regardless of whether you view GHC from the perspective of an individual, an HR professional, a recruiter or a CEO, there are opportunities to grow the role of women in technology. From the minute you step on the plane to GHC, you realize that this is special: There are hundreds of technically proficient women descending on a singular destination.
Our country faces a challenge over the coming years. We have a growing need for engineers, a stagnant population of engineering graduates and a growing number of folks displaced by technology.
The Anita Borg Institute’s work with the Grace Hopper conference is tackling these trends head-on. This week was filled with inspirational speakers and a call to action for companies worldwide to join the effort to diversify their technical workforce.
Some amazing themes and resources grew out of the time in Houston:
Learning
The Grace Hopper conference offers tremendous depth and breadth, from an exhibition hall that is likely the greatest career fair ever for women in tech to deep-dive technical sessions to broad organizational and management talks.
Why Our Future Depends on Investing in Women
Expanding Opportunities for Women in Tech
CSForAll — Computer Science for All is a bold new initiative to empower all U.S. students from kindergarten through high school to learn computer science.
Inspiration
It’s hard to describe the inspiration that comes from attending Grace Hopper. Several of the keynote speakers talked about the opportunities ahead. In her opening keynote, Ginni Rometty from IBM talked about working on something bigger than yourself and to “never let someone define who you are.”
“Hidden Figures, Hidden Figures Trailer and Trailer 2 and NPR and CNET
How to Thrive as a Woman in Tech
Focus
Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, talked about pay equity and Megan Smith, White House chief technology officer, shared an overview of many of the programs underway to bring more women into technical fields.
We Went to Grace Hopper, Here's What We Brought Back
Why This Matters to HR Professionals
You should be here next year. Every industry feels the impact of technology—and is being disrupted by the new social and digital world—and Grace Hopper is a great opportunity to connect with women in technology, from students to seasoned professionals.
Some other write-ups:
Twitter Cisco HortonWorks GoDaddy Microsoft Cloudera CapitalOne Juniper Networks University of Nebraska PricewaterhouseCoopers NASA
And of course:
GraceHopper.org AnitaBorg.org NCWIT.org
The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is a magical event for like-minded people to gather to promote the role of women in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. Eleanor Roosevelt said, “With the new day comes new strength and new thoughts,” and I’m sure everyone leaving the GHC was filled with new and inspiring thoughts.
For HR professionals, particularly in the U.S., if we are going to address the tech job shortage, we’re going to need to recruit more women into tech roles. We know that diverse teams are more creative, and the Grace Hopper conference is a great opportunity to recruit more women into the STEM fields.
To paraphrase ski filmmaker Warren Miller, if you don’t attend Grace Hopper next year, you’ll just be one year older when you eventually do.
Ross Smith, FRSA Modern Workplace Engineering - Supportability Ross is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and blogger. Author of The Practical Guide to Defect Prevention and holds seven patents. He is currently a Ph.D. Scholar, part of University College Dublin's SmartLab program, researching the impact of AI, robotics, and automation on worker displacement. He has worked at Microsoft for over 28 years and is a member of the Leadership Council for the Anita Borg Institute, co-chair for Grace Hopper Organizational Transformation track. He is a co-leader of ABI Local in Seattle, and part of the gender partner LT and ”male ally” panel discussions at the IEEE Women in Technology and National Center for Women in Technology (NCWIT) Summit and TechCrunch. Work with iUrbanTeen and Native Americans at Microsoft. He is a member of the board of Spreeha, working to break the cycle of poverty. Developed 42projects to promote cultural change, develop organizational trust and improve the lives of the managed. To help develop the next generation’s interest in STEAM (STEM+Arts), he works with Skype in the Classroom program and events like iUrbanTeen day at Microsoft. He was invited to the White House for discussion on women in STEM. Keynote speaker for the ARTBA’s Transovation 2014-2016. The work of his teams has been mentioned in Forbes, The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, PSFK, the American Journal of Play, Harvard Business Review, and the London School of Business. He has presented at SXSW, MIT Solve, Grace Hopper, Serious Play, Games for Change, and several other large conferences. His academic research papers are published on ResearchGate. He is a blogger for SHRM has worked on Skype Translator. He is an avid reader and loves to travel.
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