Katy Dickinson

1st Night at Hopper Conference

I arrived earlier tonight in Orlando, Florida, to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing from today through Saturday morning. Sun Microsystems is a Platinum Sponsor of the conference. Sun has 10 panelists and BOF leaders as well as three of the ten official bloggers.

Both of my flights were delayed. The most pleasant part of the trip here was meeting the first woman cab driver I have ever had. An auspicious start! The first person to meet me was my daughter Jessica, also an official GHC blogger, whom I have not seen since August when she went to college. It was a delight to see her! We are rooming together and looking forward to the visit as well as the conference.

I was one of the opening speakers tonight and I got to the hotel about 10 minutes before stepping up to the microphone. Robin Jeffries talked after me and announced the 20th anniversary of Systers, then cut the huge chocolate Systers birthday cake. The introductory remarks were followed by the reception and poster session.

I am still trying to make the network access in in our hotel room work. Neither the wireless nor the cable work so far, so I am down in the lobby using the wireless (which works fine). There are quite a few other women sitting here in the lobby taking advantage of the network access. Tomorrow is our official Official Bloggers briefing but I want to get started early. I took some good photos tonight which I will post as soon as I get the mechanics of the hotel's wireless sorted out.

Official GHC 2007 Blogger. You may comment on this blog by visiting the GHC Forum. You can find me at http://blogs.sun.com/katysblog.

Posted at 08:03PM Oct 17, 2007 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  |