Katy Dickinson

2nd Hopper Day

Today is the second day of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (aka GHC 2008) in Keystone, Colorado. We are at 9,300 feet and few people are sleeping well because of the altitude but the conference is still excellent.

Today started early with a kenote/CTO breakfast, followed by an interesting keynote presentation by Fran Allen (IBM Fellow Emerita and first woman to win the prestigious Turing award). Before Fran spoke, two female sailors from the USS Hopper missile destroyer showed pictures from their ship. There were many activities, panels, and presentations to pick from. I attended:

• Session One: "Innovating with Chip Multi-Threading Technology" by Catherine Ahlschlager (Sun Microsystems) and
  "Outside of Normal Operating Conditions: Using Commercial Hardware in Space Computing Platforms" by Heather M. Quinn (Los Alamos National Laboratory)
• Session Two: "Enabling Nonprofits to Accomplish their Missions through Technology"
• CTO Plenary Session - "Leading Technology, a View from the Top" (including Sun's CTO Dr. Greg Papadopoulos)
• Session Three: my panel! "Taking the Long View - Many Careers in One Company" with Sheueling Chang-Shantz (Sun Microsystems), Martha Lyons (Hewlett Packard), Cristina Mahon (Hewlett Packard), Ana Pinczuk (Cisco), and me. Our panel was well received with both the panelists and audience enjoying themselves.
• Session Four: Invited Technical Speaker - Anna Karlin, Professor, University of Washington, on "A Survey of Some Recent Research at the Border of Game Theory, Economics, and Computer Science"

There was a thunderstorm and rain at lunchtime but the weather cleared after. Dinner was another buffet in the poster hall followed by the annual award ceremony, a "Rhythm and Hue" painting performance by David Garibaldi (who painted portraits of Admiral Hopper and Anita Borg), and finally dessert and a dance.

Closing the Hopper awards with a dance was a tradition started by Anita Borg and remains one of the unique and delightful experiences of the Hopper conference. Dancing with several hundred women college students, Engineers, and executives from all over the computing world is a real delight. (But having my daughter Jessica as a dance partner was the best part!) The few men present seemed to have a good time as well. Our MAGIC girls' mentoring BOF is tomorrow.

Posted at 10:42PM Oct 02, 2008 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  | 

1st Hopper Day, Plagiarism Poster

Today is the first day of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (aka GHC 2008) in Keystone, Colorado. I have lived most of my life at sea level in the San Francisco Bay Area, so the dry thin air here in the Rocky Mountains (at 9,300 feet) takes some getting used to. The hotel is very pleasant but only offers heat - no cooling in the rooms. Our room has a lovely mountain view but it heats up fast when the sun hits the windows. We have the humidifier going full and the balcony door open for cooling - not the most efficient combination.

This morning, Tanya Jankot and I unpacked the Sun Microsystems shipment boxes and set up our company table in the exhibit hall. We have already given away several boxes of the Java 10 year commemorative book (with signed card by James Gosling), Sun pens, and Women@Sun sticky note cubes. We will be giving away Sun Women in Engineering tshirts (in six languages!) starting this afternoon.

My daughter Jessica flew in this morning from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her suitcase has not yet arrived. However, Jessica carried her four foot square Hopper poster in her arms most of the way so it is in good shape for the opening session tonight. We put it up in the poster hall a little while ago - it looks interesting and very well done. I am so proud of her!

Jessica's poster topic is "How to Combat Plagiarism in Academia (and How Not To)". It presents her research on how major universities (including CMU, Stanford, MIT, CalTech, Indian Institute of Information Technology - Allahabad), address the potential for plagiarism through technical and non-technical solutions (such as honor codes). Some of Jessica's conclusions:

"Companies which sell technical solutions to academic plagiarism argue that students cheat and that the only way to stop them is to use a commercial technical solution. In this poster I have shown

1. Three of five top [Computer Science] schools in the world choose to rely on non-technical approaches to plagiarism—Honor Codes.
2. I have found no data suggesting that schools which employ a technical solution have more honest academic cultures."

Jessica started thinking deeply about this topic (both plagiarism and treating students as "guilty until proven innocent") when she served on the Harker Judicial Committee during her Senior year in High School. (She is now a Sophomore at CMU.) I hope she will continue this interesting research.

Posted at 02:37PM Oct 01, 2008 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  | 

Arrived at Keystone for Hopper

I have arrived in Keystone, Colorado, in the Rocky Mountains near Denver, for the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (aka GHC 2008). It was an uneventful trip. On the flight from San Francisco, I sat next to a pleasant woman who wore a silver leather jacket and more sparkley jewelery and clothes than I have ever seen on one person. Everything, even her glasses and shoes, had sparkles.

Flying over the mountains, there were big patches of yellow rust color that the pilot said were aspens wearing their autumn leaves. It was dark when we arrived but I am looking forward to seeing the mountains in the sun tomorrow.

Tanya Jankot and I were on the same flight. We had dinner at the Denver airport, then took the shuttle to Keystone. There were so many women headed for Hopper that they had to call for a second van. Our driver said it was his 4th trip of the day. I teased him that some men would be happy to be on a two hour van trip with eleven women but he said he had four older sisters so he expected to be picked on.

Tanya and I will be setting up the Sun table in the exhibit hall tomorrow after lunch. I hope that all of our stuff has arrived in good shape. My daughter Jessica arrives tomorrow morning.

Posted at 10:15PM Sep 30, 2008 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  | 

Day Before Hopper - Printing Printing Printing

More than thirty-five Sun staff will be at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing this week in Keystone, Colorado. Many of us were able to check in with each other by conference call this afternoon. I am flying into Denver tomorrow afternoon. Today, I am printing everything I think I may need while I am traveling and at the conference:

• Airline boarding pass
• Denver-Keystone-Denver airport shuttle tickets
• My travel itinerary (California-Colorado-California) and my daughter's travel itinerary (Pennsylvania-Colorado-Pennsylvania)
• Hotel reservation confirmation
• Phone numbers and names of people I plan to contact
• Information about Sun staff attending Hopper 2008
• Information on my panel "Taking the Long View - Many Careers in One Company" - Thursday, October 2nd, Session Three, 2:45pm - 3:45pm
• Information on the MAGIC BOF in which I am a participant - "Setting Up An Effective Organization To Support Girls" on Friday, Oct 3rd, 5:10pm - 6:10pm
• Sun job and program and MAGIC program information, in case anyone asks me

I am also carrying Sun business cards and MAGIC business cards, pencils printed with "www.getmagic.org MAGIC girls" for distribution at the BOF, books, clothes, etc. Sun's Hopper t-shirts and other giveaways were already shipped, as were our posters and quick screens. I updated my laptop software this afternoon but John is messing with it now (in case he, as our family sysadmin, can think of more stuff I might need).

I talked with Jessica and she is ready to print her poster for Hopper's Technical Poster Session (Wednesday, 1 Oct, 7 - 9 pm). I am looking forward to seeing it (and my girl!).

Keystone temperatures are expected to range between 65 degrees F and 25 degrees F, at 8930 feet above sea level, with thunderstorm potential, so I am packing for cold and maybe wet weather. Almost ready to go... I am very much looking forward to this. Hopper conferences are well worth the effort.

Posted at 08:01PM Sep 29, 2008 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  | 

MAGIC Business Cards

There is a solid feeling of accomplishment in having business cards printed up the first time for a new venture. The MAGIC core team now has its cards to take to the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing next week in Colorado. Here is mine:

The MAGIC mentoring program for middle and high school girls will be featured at a BOF called "Setting Up An Effective Organization To Support Girls", on Friday, Oct 3rd, 5:10pm - 6:10pm. If you attend Hopper, please come by and talk with us!

Image Copyright 2008 Katy Dickinson

Posted at 04:15PM Sep 26, 2008 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  | 

Hopper Conference and OpenSolaris

One of the benefits of Sun again being a Platinum Sponsor of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (Keystone Resort, Colorado, October 1-4, 2008) is that we get to put stuff into the bags given out at registration to all conference participants. This year, we are distributing OpenSolaris Back to School Student Pack. The Back to School Student Pack includes two CDs - a Live bootable and installable OpenSolaris CD, plus a Resources DVD. I think the Grace Hopper participants, particularly the majority who are university students or faculty, will put these to good use.

Websites for Update Versions and More Information

• OpenSolaris (an operating system that provides a rich, coherent platform for building and running applications)
• VirtualBox (a family of powerful x86 virtualization products)
• OpenOffice (the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more)
• NetBeans (A free, open-source Integrated Development Environment for software developers.)

Resources for Hopper 2008:

• Professors and academic institutions interested in OpenSolaris and Student Pack, please contact opensolaris-university@sun.com soon.
• 2.8 Gb Downloadable VirtualBox Guest Image (as found on the Resource DVD distributed at Hopper 2008)
• gzip Home Page for the gunzip.exe program for Windows users

Posted at 01:27PM Sep 19, 2008 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  | 

Almost Ready for Grace Hopper

I am again managing Sun's participation in the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference, now just a few weeks away: Keystone Resort, Colorado, October 1-4, 2008. On Thursday (2 Oct), Sun has staff in 8 panels or talks, with 4 more on Friday (3 Oct). You can see my panel "Taking the Long View - Many Careers in One Company" on Thursday, October 2nd, Session Three, 2:45pm - 3:45pm. I am also participating in a BOF on the new MAGIC mentoring program called "Setting Up An Effective Organization To Support Girls" on Friday, Oct 3rd, 5:10pm - 6:10pm.

Other panels or presentations including Sun staff have these titles:

• CTO Plenary Session
• Innovating with Chip Multi-Threading Technology
• Mid-Career Course Correction
• The Synergistic Evolution of Software & Hardware Technologies
• Build a Better Processor: Breaking through the Technology Challenges
• Letting the Cup Overflow: Expanding Your Experiences Outside Your Research Lab
• Project Fortress: A Multicore Language for Scientists and Engineers
• Women in the Brave New World of Free and Open Source Software
• Web 2.0 Session: Online Social Networks - Impact to Our Careers
• Experiences with Maternity Leave and Returning to Work

The many Sun staff attending are coordinating schedules (which breakfast, lunch, or evening events to attend?, who will staff Sun's exhibit hall table when?, who can help set up or tear down?). Hopper is an exhilerating experience and I am very much looking forward to it.

Last year was the first time my daughter Jessica attended Hopper. This year, her own poster submission was accepted. I haven't seen my girl since she left for her second year at Carnegie Mellon University in late August. It will be fun to room together again. Some photos from Hopper 2007:

Jessica & Fran Allen

My "Girl Geeks" Panel, 2007

Friday Party 2007

Hopper 2007 Poster

Images Copyright 2007 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 10:51PM Sep 17, 2008 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  | 

MAGIC Girls' Mentoring Update

The MAGIC mentoring program for middle and high school girls is getting ready for its pilot program at The Girls' Middle School (GMS) in Mountain View, CA. We on the MAGIC core team have spent the summer identifying, interviewing, and checking out senior technical women from Sun, Google, Intel, and other companies as potential mentors. We have also written FAQs, guides, process flows, and other supporting documents. See how to apply on http://www.getmagic.org/mentor.html.

MAGICMentor Criteria

1. Must be a woman with a career (past or present) in technology.
2. Must pledge a time commitment of 6-9 months, 5-10 hours/month.
3. Must provide a professional profile, including the number of years of professional experience.
4. Must consent to participate in a comprehensive background check.
5. Must go through an application process, including a phone interview.
6. Must complete initial orientation/training.

MAGICMentee Criteria

1. Must be a middle or high school girl, interested in technology.
2. Must furnish written parental consent.
3. If accepted, parents must sign a waiver and release of liability form.

MAGIC will be presenting a birds of a feather (BOF) Friday session at The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (Keystone Resort, Colorado: October 1-4, 2008). You can read up on the history of MAGIC on my blog:

• Women of Vision Videos 2005-2008 July 24, 2008
• MAGIC in Newsweek June 15, 2008
• Sun at Hopper 2008 May 27, 2008
• MAGIC at Girls' Middle School May 21, 2008
• Women of Vision Event May 09, 2008

Posted at 12:48PM Sep 08, 2008 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  | 

Unleash Your Creativity - Sun's Hopper 2008 Ad (revised)

Sun is a again a Platinum-level Sponsor of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (in Keystone Resort, Colorado: October 1-4, 2008). Thanks for the comments on the earlier version of the conference program advertisement. We revised the first sentence to sound better. Thanks also to Margaret Nguyen and Alex Seibert of Sun Marketing for their support. See the earlier version (and Sun's 2007 Hopper conference ad) on: July 24, 2008. Click on the image below to see a bigger version.

Sun Copyright 2008, Reprinted with permission

Posted at 03:20PM Jul 28, 2008 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  | 

Women of Vision Videos 2005-2008

On 9 May 2008, I wrote about the amazing Women of Vision event held in downtown San Jose, California. Sun Labs' Susan Landau, Distinguished Engineer, won the Anita Borg Institute 2008 WOV Award in the Social Impact category. Sun's CTO Greg Papadopoulos gave the welcome address at the Imperial Ballroom of the Fairmont Hotel.

The videos of the three 2008 winners' acceptance speeches have now been posted on YouTube. We who are building the new MAGIC program for mentoring middle school girls are planning how to use these videos for inspiration. Here are all of the 2005-2008 WOV links on YouTube:

• Woman of Vision Radia Perlman Video 2005 WOV Winner for Innovation
  (Radia Perlman is Sun's first woman Fellow!)
  
• Woman of Vision Janie Tsao 2005 WOV Winner for Leadership
• Woman of Vision Pamela Samuelson Video 2005 WOV Winner for Social Impact
• Deborah Estrin, Women of Vision 2007 WOV Winner for Innovation
  Deborah Estrin, Acceptance Speech
  
• Duy-Loan Le, Women of Vision for Leadership 2007
  Duy-Loan Le, Acceptance Speech, part 1
  Duy-Loan Le, Acceptance Speech, part 2
  
• Leah Jamieson, Women of Vision for Social Impact 2007
  Leah Jamieson, Acceptance Speech
  
• Susan Landau Women of Vision Award Speech part 1 2008 Social Impact Winner
  Susan Landau Women of Vision Speech part 2
  Susan Landau, Women of Vision Winner Social Impact slides
• Helen Greiner Women of Vision Award Speech 2008 Innovation Winner
  Helen Greiner, Women of Vision Award Winner Innovation slides
• Justine Cassell Women of Vision Award Speech pt 1 2008 Leadership Winner
  Justine Cassell Women of Vision Award Speech Part 2
  Justine Cassell Women of Vision Award Speech Part 3
  Justine Cassell Women of Vision Award Winner Leadership slides

Posted at 07:07PM Jul 24, 2008 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  | 

Unleash Your Creativity - Sun's Hopper 2008 Advertisement

Sun is a again a Platinum level Sponsor of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (in Keystone Resort, Colorado: October 1-4, 2008). We worked with Margaret Nguyen (Advertising Program Specialist in Sun Marketing) to create Sun's 2008 program ad for Hopper (which we received today). Click on the images to see a bigger version.

Sun Copyright 2008, Reprinted with permission

For comparison, here is the advertisement Sun used last year (for Hopper 2007):

Sun Copyright 2007, Reprinted with permission

Posted at 05:30PM Jul 24, 2008 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  | 

Sun at Hopper 2008

Sun is a long-term supporter of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing and the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology.

About Hopper

The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is an annual conference designed to bring the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. Presenters are leaders in their respective fields, representing industrial, academic and government communities. Leading researchers present their current work, while special sessions focus on the role of women in today's technology fields, including computer science, information technology, research and engineering. International participation is encouraged.

This year's Hopper 2008 conference theme is "We Build a Better World". Hopper 2008 will be held October 1-4, 2008 in Keystone, Colorado.

The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is presented by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology and the Association for Computing Machinery.

Why go to Hopper?

1. Professional education, celebration, and excitement
2. Networking and Visibility
3. Recruiting (University and Professional)

Here is one example of what happens at Hopper:

In 2007, a group of senior women Engineers and Executives got together and created MAGIC, a new mentoring program for middle school and high school girls. MAGIC was kicked off as a BOF (birds of a feather session) at Hopper 2007, and a group of interested potential mentors signed up. MAGIC is now partnering with Girls' Middle School on its pilot program with volunteer mentors from Sun Microsystems, Google, NASA, and other organizations. An update BOF is scheduled for Hopper 2008.

Sun's Participation

Congratulations to Sun staff who are on panels or BOFs accepted by the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing 2008! This is a starting list - there are always changes and additions as panel rosters are developed.

Sun Submissions Accepted for Hopper 2008

1. BOF - Best Practices for Latina Grad Students
2. BOF - Experiences with Maternity Leave and Returning to Work
3. BOF - Setting Up An Effective Organization To Support Girls
4. Panel - CTO Panel
5. Panel - Letting the Cup Overflow; expanding your experiences outside your research lab
6. Panel - Mid-Career Course Correction
7. Panel - Online Social Networks - Impact to our careers
8. Panel - Women in the Brave New World of Free and Open Source Software
9. Panel - Project Fortress: A Multicore Language for Scientists and Engineers
10. Panel - Synergistic Evolution of Software & Hardware Technologies
11. Panel - Taking the Long View - Many Careers in One Company
12. Presentation - Innovating with Chip Multi-Threading Technology

Posted at 09:56AM May 27, 2008 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  |  Comments[1]

MAGIC at Girls' Middle School

Three of us from the new MAGIC program presented at The Girls' Middle School (GMS) in Mountain View, CA today. GMS is partnering with MAGIC on our first pilot program. MAGIC (More Active Girls In Computing) is a mentorship program between very senior technical women at Sun Microsystems, Google, NASA and other organizations and middle school girls. MAGIC was kicked off at the October 2007 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. (MAGIC has just been accepted to present again at Hopper 2008.) We want to foster in these girls a positive attitude towards computing and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math).

Hosted by Michelle Friend Hutton (GMS Technology Director), Ira Pramanick, Meenakshi Kaul-Basu, and I presented at a GMS school assembly this afternoon to tell the girls all about it. We passed out MAGIC pencils imprinted with our web address. There was much trading of pencils until all the girls got the colors they preferred.

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 11:13PM May 21, 2008 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  | 

Women of Vision Event

Last night the amazing Women of Vision event was held in downtown San Jose. Sun Labs' Susan Landau, Distinguished Engineer, won the Anita Borg Institute 2008 WOV Award in the Social Impact category. Sun's CTO Greg Papadopoulos gave the welcome address at the Imperial Ballroom of the Fairmont Hotel. Some photos from the inspiring event are below.

In a few days, videos of the 3 winners' acceptance speeches will be posted on YouTube. Those of us who are building the new MAGIC program for mentoring middle school girls are already planning how to use these videos in our program. All of the acceptance speeches were amazing but Helen Greiner (Co-founder and Chairman, iRobot, 2008 WOV winner for Innovation) was particularly moving when she spoke about never even once having been encouraged to consider Engineering as a career when she was a girl, despite her aptitude and fascination for math and computers, and our obligation not to let that kind of negligence continue into the new generation.

To make it easier to find the videos from the first two WOV events, here are links:

• Woman of Vision Radia Perlman Video 2005 WOV Winner for Innovation
  (Radia Perlman is Sun's first woman Fellow!)
  
• Woman of Vision Janie Tsao 2005 WOV Winner for Leadership
• Woman of Vision Pamela Samuelson Video 2005 WOV Winner for Social Impact
• Deborah Estrin, Women of Vision 2007 WOV Winner for Innovation
  Deborah Estrin, Acceptance Speech
  
• Duy-Loan Le, Women of Vision for Leadership 2007
  Duy-Loan Le, Acceptance Speech, part 1
  Duy-Loan Le, Acceptance Speech, part 2
  
• Leah Jamieson, Women of Vision for Social Impact 2007
  Leah Jamieson, Acceptance Speech
  

Greg Papadopoulos

Susan Landau

Program, Keychain, Badge

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 06:08PM May 09, 2008 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  | 

Women of Vision

On 27 Febuary, I wrote a blog about Sun Labs' Susan Landau, Distinguished Engineer, winning the Anita Borg Institute 2008 Women of Vision Award in the Social Impact category. Sun has 58 executives, engineers, students, and interns attending tomorrow's WOV celebration event, with Sun CTO Greg Papadopoulos giving the welcome address! We are all very proud of Dr. Susan Landau.

But, I am also proud of Sun's Engineering community which made this celebration possible:

• The women who applied for the award on Susan's behalf, put together the nomination package, including executive letters of recommendation from Sun's leadership, and nurtured it through the process.
• The executives who put up the funding to cover Sun's Gold sponsorship of the event. (The fee was split three ways between Software, Operations, and the CTO/Sun Labs group.)
• The Marketing staff who designed the program advertisement.
• The University Relations staff who invited 20 students and interns to sit at Sun's tables at the event.

Among Sun's 58 attendees, we have students and interns from a dozen schools and universities, plus Sun staff from Labs, Systems, Legal, Operations, Human Resources, SunIT, Marketing, Microelectronics, and Sales. Everyone wants to celebrate!

Posted at 11:57AM May 07, 2008 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  |