Juniors attend conference for women in tech

In early October, thousands gathered in Orlando, Fla. to celebrate the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, the world’s largest gathering of women in computer science.

This past year the conference had over 18,000 attendees from multiple countries. Attendance for the conference has continued to grow every year as more people learn about it and want to attend.

The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is designed to inspire women by showing them that not only can they succeed in this field, but also that organizations and companies actually are looking to hire them.

The conference gives women an opportunity to be surrounded by those similar to them, showing them that they are not alone in this world of science and technology.

The Celebration took place over  three days, and it was jam-packed with keynote speakers ranging from Melinda Gates to Fei-Fei Li, the head of Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence Lab as well as the chief scientist of Google Cloud’s Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

In addition to speakers, the event included career fairs, company interviews, networking lounges, free tech and free food, as well as the latest and greatest technology this country has to offer.

Two Hopkins students, juniors Reena Sarkar and Adriana Donis, attended the event this year. Both women are computer science majors and said that the event was an amazing experience.

According to the two women, highlights of the event included a Snapchat party, amazing “swag” at every booth, a private trip to Epcot’s France Pavilion to watch the fireworks and most importantly, numerous career and internship opportunities through the career fairs. Donis said that her favorite part of the event was the keynote speakers.

“To actually see Melinda Gates was so cool,” Donis said. “It gave me goosebumps to see her actually in front of me.”

One of the most helpful parts of this event, according to both Sarkar and Donis, were the amazing networking events which helped the girls generate professional connections and internships.

One interesting feature of the Grace Hopper event is that participants can connect with companies before the conference by submitting your resume beforehand.

This feature can help young women with finding their first internship, a job after graduation or simply making a great connection.

According to Donis, the networking process was an exciting experience where the companies were really thrilled to meet women with a devoted interest to their field.

Donis said that there was not so much focus on classes or GPAs but rather on each woman’s passion and excitement for the field. The companies set up elaborate stands and lounges simply to talk with these young engineers. They also gave away free emoji backpacks food and sweatshirts.

One stand-out event was a field trip to Orlando’s Epcot Center, where the software company Palantir rented out the French Pavilion for an evening, giving the attendees a front row seat to the nightly fireworks display.

Sarkar spoke about many of the other fun activities over the three days, one of which was a scavenger hunt around Epcot Center, solving riddles and clues about different countries.

“Palantir rented out the whole pavilion, and the whole thing was really amazing,” Sarkar said. “It was so much fun to see the fireworks that close and have all that free food.”

Both women also spoke about their experiences in the field of science and technology. As women in the tech field, neither of them have felt much prejudice in a male-dominated field.

While they both acknowledge that the field is male dominated, they are far more focused on all the opportunities being a women in this field has provided them. They referred to events like Grace Hopper that have introduced them to opportunities they would have never otherwise known about.

Overall, according to Sarkar, Grace Hopper gives young women in science and technology the opportunity to explore their interests in technology and puts them in contact with other like-minded women. It inspires them to think bigger and puts them in contact with companies, giving them real world experience to help propel their passions.

“Grace Hopper taught me that it is a great time to be a woman in technology. There are so many opportunities for women, so take advantage of them. What matters is your interest in the subject and passion for the science,” Sarkar said.