Katy Dickinson

96% SEED Mentees Matched

Since 9 July, we have been in the SEED 2008-2009 Mentor Matching Cycle. That is, the 84 Engineering mentoring program Participants (Mentees) have created and prioritized their 15-name Mentor Wish Lists and I am in the process of sequentially contacting the highest priority potentially available mentor for each of them. In about a month, 81 or 96% have been matched so far. There are two terms being matched at the same time:

• September 2008 - September 2009 Recent Hire Term
  which already has 22 out of 23 matched
• September 2008 - March 2009 Established Staff Term
  which already has 59 out of 61 matched

More information on the SEED worldwide Engineering mentoring program is available at http://research.sun.com/SEED/

Posted at 03:52PM Aug 08, 2008 by katysblog in Caboose Project and Other Trains  | 

SEED Annual Event

The SEED worldwide Engineering mentoring program is holding its annual in-person event at the end of next month. SEED offers monthly phone-in meetings and a 1-day meeting each Spring but the Autumn SEED Event is much bigger. It is the formal term-start for two groups of mentees and mentors to begin their time together (the 2008-2009 Recent Hires and Established Staff groups).

This year, we are offering two days of speakers, tours, a Sun Spot demo, a hosted dinner, plus many opportunities for SEED participants, their managers and mentors to get to know each other and Sun's executives better. Confirmed speakers include:

• Dr. Greg Papadopoulos, Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Research and Development - SEED's executive sponsor!
• Mike Lehman, Chief Financial Officer and EVP of Corporate Resources
• Aisling MacRunnels, Vice President of Software Marketing
• Dr. Ron Ho, Distinguished Engineer, VLSI Research Project, Sun Labs
• Dean Nelson, Senior Director, Global Lab & Datacenter Design Services

In addition to these remarkable executive speakers, the event includes two sessions of the SEED Showcase during which we can show off to each other. There will be six SEED speakers (three each day) giving short presentations on their current work. Tanya Jankot and I picked the six speakers from among 28 applicants. Yesterday, I gave away 11 travel scholarships to the Showcase presenters plus others so that Sun Engineering staff who have not seen our Menlo Park headquarters can visit during the SEED event. Between the scholarships and the 43 registrations (so far), we have people joining the SEED Event from China, Czech Replublic, India, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, UK, and the USA. We usually have over 100 participants, some calling in but the great majority in person.

More information on the SEED worldwide Engineering mentoring program is available at http://research.sun.com/SEED/

Posted at 03:26PM Aug 08, 2008 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  |