Author Archives: Guest Contributor

Join Robin Hammerman and other Ada Lovelace researchers and fans at Stevens Institute of Technology in October

In January, we shared with you the call for papers for the Celebrating the Achievements and Legacies of Ada Lovelace conference:

CALL FOR PAPERS
Celebrating the Achievements and Legacies of Ada Lovelace
18 October 2013
Stevens Institute of Technology, College of Arts and Letters (Hoboken, New Jersey, USA)

An interdisciplinary conference celebrating the achievements and legacies of the poet Lord Byron’s only known legitimate child, Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace (1815–1852), will take place at Stevens Institute of Technology (Hoboken, New Jersey) on 18 October 2013. This conference will coincide with the week celebrating Ada Lovelace Day, a global event for women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). All aspects of the achievements and legacies of Ada Lovelace will be considered, including but not limited to:

  • Lovelace as Translator and/or Collaborator
  • Technology in the Long Nineteenth Century
  • Women in Computing: Past/Present/Future
  • Women in STEM- Past/Present/Future
  • Ada Lovelace and her Circle

Please submit proposals or abstracts of 250-500 words by 14 May 2013 to: Robin Hammerman (rhammerm@stevens.edu).

Submissions are still open, and organiser Robin Hammerman shares more about the conference and her interest in Ada Lovelace:

Q. Tell us a little about yourself.

Robin: I teach Literature and Communications at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. Most of our students major in STEM. To me, it is amazing to see how well our students build on their strengths and face their challenges in humanities courses. We are a relatively small school of only around 6,000 students with a strong spirit of collaboration. Our College of Arts and Letters is an ideal venue for hosting the upcoming Ada conference. We are a warm and welcoming part of the Stevens community, dedicated to mindful exchanges and – in my estimation – a perfect match for the Ada world. My research interests include science fiction, comics and graphic novels, and British Romanticism. I am chiefly a Byronist, so my initial connection to Ada was forged through my exposure to her father’s life and works. Additionally, it has been my honor to serve the Byron Society of America as its Director of Membership and Academic Services since 2007. As you might imagine, we have many Ada fans in our membership!

Q. What motivated you to create a conference about Ada Lovelace?

Robin: The time is definitely right to bring Ada to campus. Stevens was a male-only school until 1971 and now we have a flourishing community of women on campus. We are constantly generating fantastic opportunities for women so that they might thrive here, and it has definitely been working. Within the College of Arts and Letters alone we developed an excellent Gender Studies program, and our new program for Science and Technology Studies – also within CAL – strongly anchors women in STEM. Additionally, in 1982 Stevens became the first major educational institution in the U.S. to implement a personal computer requirement for its students. Back then, a pioneering technology project resulted in the networking of the entire Stevens campus, creating one of the nation’s first Intranets. Clearly, Stevens is well-positioned to host a conference celebrating Ada’s legacies and achievements.

Q. Who should speak at or attend this conference?

Robin: I anticipate an interdisciplinary extravaganza of past/present/future with people of varying interests represented in the audience and the speakers. Really, all are welcome – faculty, students, independent and rogue scholars, enthusiasts…the call for papers is rather open. In addition to topics on women in STEM, the history of computing, etc. we are interested in developing panels on new media. I would really like to hear some work at the conference on Ada’s collaboration with Charles Babbage as well as Ada’s larger circle. She had some very interesting friends, including Charles Dickens. While we are on the subject of literary topics, we are developing a panel on Ada’s iconic status in Steampunk Literature – so you see, there is hardly a limit to what we might include. You don’t have to be a passionate supporter of women in STEM to attend or speak at this conference, but it helps!

Q. What is your favorite Lovelace fact or story?

Robin: To me, the coolest ever Lovelace fact is that NASA named its first computer program after her. As a Byronist, I think that Ada never meeting her father is an interesting part of her story. Nevertheless, this fact seems to say more about her father than it does about her.

Q. What are your plans for next year?

Robin: I am interested in seeing how our Stevens community and beyond will be enriched by the conference proceedings. Next year will provide us with unique opportunities to expand our Ada-inspired knowledge bases. If it seems appropriate, perhaps we might consider developing a publication including papers from the conference. Most of all, this conference will bring together people who might otherwise not have met. From this act of coming together, I anticipate long-term benefits in our collective thinking about what it means to have true, interdisciplinary engagement.

Rebecca Watson of Skepchick: “Why would you want to hang out with those jerks anyway?”

Rebecca Watson with red hair on a black background

Rebecca Watson of Skepchick

Rebecca Watson is a well-known feminist and skeptic activist, as well as a sought-after public speaker. She leads a team of activists who write for the Skepchick network of blogs, which covers science, skepticism, feminism, atheism, secularism, and pseudoscience. You can watch videos of Watson speaking on YouTube, like this talk about pseudoscience about women, and follow her on Twitter at @rebeccawatson.

We asked Rebecca Watson about how she got started as a public speaker, why she only speaks at events with 35% women speakers and an anti-harassment policy, and what her dream speaking engagement would be.

Q. You are a popular speaker! Tell us a little about how you became a sought-after speaker and what sort of invitations you get.

That one continues to baffle me, actually. It’s not something I pursued – I would just deliver a talk whenever someone was nice enough to ask me, and I guess people liked them and invited me to give more. Having a popular blog and podcast helped, too. I enjoy speaking on a variety of topics, so I get invites from skeptic groups, science advocacy groups, atheist groups, and now feminist groups as well. Pretty much everywhere I go, I meet amazing people and have a blast. I’m a very lucky lady.

Q. Popular speakers usually have a list of requirements for speaking at an event (a.k.a. speaker rider). Yours includes two unusual requirements: an anti-harassment policy, and 35% women speakers. Why did you add these?

Anti-harassment policies just make sense. I’ve heard from many women who have told me they’d feel safer at a conference that has one; the only people I’ve heard who hate them are the people who harass me online, so it seemed like an easy call. I want to support conferences that are inclusive and welcoming to women and minorities, and that’s one very easy way they can do that.

I’ve also seen that the more women who speak on stage, the more women show up in the audience. People feel more at home when they see people like them in prominent positions. Because the conferences I attend are usually heavily male-dominated, having a minimum of 1/3 female speakers is another easy way that conference organizers can show they place a high value on diversity. 35% is actually ridiculously low considering women are 51% of the population, but then, I’ve always been pretty easy-going. Despite the rumors. Next year I may up it to 40% and add a “non-white” percentage for fun.

Q. What usually happens when the event inviting you doesn’t already have an anti-harassment policy or 35% women speakers?

So far, every conference organizer has leapt at the chance to institute these things. Often it’s something they were considering anyway, but maybe they needed a little push and a little help. I offer to help them (or find them someone more qualified to help them) if they need. I have a thick Rolodex (not actually a thing anymore) full of smart, funny, entertaining women who can sell tickets so it hasn’t been an issue.

Q. How has your speaking career changed since you added those riders? Do you think it has hurt or helped you professionally and/or personally?

It doesn’t appear to have changed at all, actually, except for that it’s a bit more satisfying to know for sure that I’m supporting the right organizations. Only one organization has not responded after I sent them my rider, and they ended up canceling their event, anyway. It’s possible I destroyed their event with my mind powers (but not likely).

I knew it was possible people would stop inviting me places because of it, but I figured then I’d have more time for video games.

Q. What is your dream speaking engagement?

I like speaking in pubs, because everyone is relaxed and there’s beer. So I suppose my dream speaking engagement would be on a panel with Hillary Clinton, Lucy Lawless, and Amy Poehler, in a pub full of sloths, and also we’re on a spaceship.

Q. What advice would you give to other pro-women folks who speak at events regularly?

If you’re speaking at the right events, then the organizers care about diversity and reaching out to new audiences. Don’t be shy about asking them to find a good representation of women and minorities, and offer to help if you can. If you’re a man, you could refuse to speak on a panel that doesn’t have a woman on it. The worst that can happen is that you get disinvited, at which point just imagine what your mom would say: “Why would you want to hang out with those jerks anyway?”

Like this interview? Read more of Rebecca Watson’s writing at the Skepchick blog.

Netha Hussain: How AdaCamp changed my life, 8 months later

Netha Hussain

Netha Hussain, Wikipedian and AdaCamper

This is a cross-post from Netha Hussain’s blog explaining how her life has changed, 8 months after attending AdaCamp DC. Netha Hussain is a Wikipedian and medical student, living in the state of Kerala, India. She attended AdaCamp DC on an international travel scholarship from Google. Applications for AdaCamp San Francisco, June 8-9, 2013, are currently open.

It has been around eight months since I traveled to the U.S for the first time to attend Ada Camp D.C. Looking back, I find the Ada Camp as one of the most fulfilling experiences I had ever had.

The Ada initiative is a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing the participation and status of women in open technology and culture. They organize the Ada Camp and other women’s hangouts in different cities of the world. The one I attended was the second Ada Camp held in Washington D.C, U.S.A.

I had to appear for my exams soon after the camp, and I was skeptical if I would get a U.S visa. I was the only attendee traveling from India. I would miss my classes at the University for a week, and I knew that catching them up would be hard. Despite all these, I decided that I should attend the Ada Camp anyway. I guess I was lucky, because I got the visa without much hassle. I was granted leave from college. I couldn’t believe that I would be flying to join the Ada Campers in Washington D.C!

The Ada Camp brought together more than 100 enthusiastic women from all over the world. The attendees were a diverse mix of individuals, homemakers, mommies, engineers, researchers, students, social media analysts and many other people from different backgrounds. The participants were from different nationalities, but all of them were driven into applying for the Ada Camp because of their sheer love for open source stuff. I met many women who are in many ways similar to me. I could take part in discussions which centered around topics of my liking, which widened my perspective. The notes shared by the participants on etherpad were very useful for future reference. I could learn a wide variety of skills including coding and Karate! Being a student, I was fully unaware of the gender issues at workplace, and Ada camp gave me an opportunity to learn about best practices for working women. The two days of the camp was fully packed up with so much of knowledge that was relevant to me.

With a fellow Ada Camper. Photo by Chit Thiri Maug

While traveling back to India, I was deeply satisfied. I had too many projects in mind, and the potential to work towards accomplishing them – Ada Camp put me in touch with the right people and right resources to get me started. Listening to the success stories of other participants helped me overcome my initial inertia, and stimulated me to work hard towards increasing the participation of women in Wikimedia projects.

It was after the camp that the WikiWomenCollaborative, an initiative to engage women in Wikimedia, was launched. The initiative was launched by a fellow Ada Camper Sarah Stierch. Heather Walls, who designed the Collaborative’s page, was also an Ada Camper. Together, we conducted many activities including editing articles, blogging and social networking to bring more women to Wikipedia and help the existing women editors to actively contribute to Wikipedia. Meeting Sarah and Heather in person at the Ada Camp helped me overcome the cultural  and communication barriers and work collaboratively with them. It would not have been possible otherwise because of cultural and communication problems involving communicating solely online.

Ada Camp gave me a taste of coding. I wrote my first code in Python during my training session at Ada Camp. Though it was a small code involving adding numbers, I was so happy to have accomplished a skill! I am not good at coding yet, but the Camp helped me to get over my fear of codes. I have been improving fairly, and I dream of writing a useful code someday. Gathering ideas from the Ada Camp, I successfully conducted a conference in my city  in open space format. I have forgotten the 10 life saving karate moves I mastered during the camp, but I still cherish the learning sessions when we had a lot of fun practicing the moves on each other.

After participating in the Camp, I started spending quality time on Wikipedia on activities that are directly relevant to women. I started writing on Geek Feminism Wiki and got involved in writing blogs about women in open knowledge projects. I could get myself updated on recent issues that concern women from the Ada Camp alumni mailing list. The alumni mailing list also helped me maintain the contacts I made during the Camp. Talking at the Ada Camp increased my confidence in public speaking, and I have given three talks since the Camp.

Now, I have been involved in many open knowledge related activities that involve outreach, mobilizing people, conduct Wikipedia workshops and mobilizing funds. My participation at the Ada Camp enabled me to carry out these activities productively.

Yes, Ada Camp literally changed my life.

1. The third Ada camp is happening in San Francisco, U.S.A in June 2013.If you are a woman or an ally of women involved in open stuff, apply for the Camp here. 
2. My proposal for Wikimania includes the ideas I gathered from Ada Camp D.C. The abstract of the paper can be viewed here.

We thank our gold level sponsors Mozilla and Automattic; and our silver level sponsors Google Site Reliability Engineering, Linux Foundation, Red Hat, and Intel; for their support of AdaCamp San Francisco. Contact sponsors@adainitiative.org to join them.

Reminder: visit the Ada Initiative feminist hacker lounge at PyCon this week!

Ada Initiative advisors Lukas Blakk and Liz Henry write:

PyCon 2013 logo

At this year’s annual USA Python conference — PyCon in Santa Clara, California, March 15–17 — the Ada Initiative will have a booth  in the Exhibition hall, set up as a feminist hacker lounge.  In partnership with Mozilla, the booth will provide space to chill out during the conference with other attendees.   Brainstorm with feminist Python hackers on projects you’re currently working on or are just now dreaming up!

Throughout the three days of the conference we will have some organized Birds-Of-a-Feather (BOF) events on various topics. Come check out the booth schedule and say hello! Snacks will be provided and we also have fabulous stickers. Previous Python programming experience is not required to hang out with us.

Note that unfortunately no last-minute registrations for PyCon 2013 are available: the event sold out in February.

Women who are registered for the conference and attending on March 16 may also be interested in the PyLadies lunch, register ASAP to make sure there’s a place for you.

Call for Participation: Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (closes March 15)

Submissions are now open for the 2013 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, to be held October 2–5, 2013 in Minneapolis.

Submissions are encouraged from college students and professionals at all levels—from undergraduate students to entry-level industry employees to senior women in industry, government, and academia. Technical women and those who work with them (including technical men, corporate recruiters, nonprofit advocates, etc.) are all welcome to submit session proposals.

This is a great opportunity to gain professional visibility as a subject matter expert, expand your network and advance your career.

This year’s conference will focus on key areas where emerging technologies are having dramatic impact. They are: Software Engineering, Mobile Experiences, Media & Entertainment,
 Medical Technology and 
Education Technology.

Submissions are due by March 15, 11:59 PM (PST) or March 16th 2:59 AM (EST).

Find out more at the Call for Participation web page.

Systers Spring 2013 Pass-It-On Awards: applications open, apply by April 10

Kristin Potter writes:

The Anita Borg Systers Pass-It-On (PIO) Awards honor Anita Borg’s desire to create a network of technical women helping one another. The cash awards, funded exclusively by donations from the Systers Online Community, are intended as means for women established in technological fields to support women seeking their place in the fields of technology. The program is called “Pass-It-On” because it comes with the moral obligation to “pass on” the benefits gained from the award.

Women of all ages (over 18), nationalities, and backgrounds are encouraged to apply.

The deadline to apply for the Spring 2013 round is Wednesday April 10, 2013 at 12:00noon PST (UT-8)

Reference letters are due on Wednesday April 24, 2013 at 5:00 PM PST (UT-8).

If you would like to apply, or know of a woman in technology who would like to apply, you can read about the awards online at Systers Pass-It-On Awards Program.

Guidelines for completing the online application form for this award are available online.

The application form for Spring 2013 cycle of the Systers Pass-it-on Awards is online.

Please help us publicize the PIO awards to your professional and social networks and encourage your peers to apply.

Got open tech and culture news to share with women in the Ada Initiative’s community? Email share@adainitiative.org.

The Empowermentors Collective: a group for women of color and queer people of color

Students for Free Culture write:

The Empowermentors Collective is a new space by and for women of color and queer people of color within free software and free culture.

We recognize the need to address deep-seated cultural norms within the free software and free culture communities which, under the guise of openness, have excused and perpetuated alienating behavior. It is imperative that we acknowledge that there are systemic structures of control embedded in our society which permeate our movement. Refusing to do so in an effort to compartmentalize and focus on our own goals is detrimental to our success. We cannot afford to be an inward-facing movement.

To expose and undo this culture of exclusion, we would like to support the recently established Empowermentors Collective, a community for intersectionally marginalized identities. This type of intentional space also opens up the potential for much needed coalition building and advances our own understanding of how technology and media are inseparable from our experiences and ourselves, our bodies.

As the description reads:

The Empowermentors Collective is a skillshare, activism, and discussion network by and for women of color and queer people of color. We are a group of community members with a strong commitment to furthering free software and free culture through an intersectionally marginalized lens and making a more welcoming space out of these communities. We therefore necessarily also work against and do not tolerate oppression in all its forms: ableism, racism, cissexism, heterosexism, sexism, classism, etc.

The Empowermentors Collective strives to be an affirming and safer space for people with disabilities, people of color, women, and people self-identified as queer or LGBT.

We are called Empowermentors because we focus on education and encourage participants to host workshops and skillshares geared towards intersectionally marginalized identities.

  • We maintain a safer space for marginalized identity groups.
  • We address issues of oppression within the free software and free culture communities.
  • We equip each other with skills and knowledge of free software and free culture.
  • We file, catalog, and help solve bugs related to race, gender, and accessibility in free software projects.
  • We take on mentorship positions and run targeted workshops, classes, and skillshares.

Students for Free Culture and the Free Software Foundation are proud to support this effort to identify, expose, and confront crucial issues within our communities; to bridge our movement with our contemporaries in the critical intersectional analysis of oppression, hierarchy, and domination; and to develop our own philosophy at the cutting-edge of feminist, queer, critical race, and cyborg theory.

If you are a woman of color or queer person of color in the free software or free culture community and are interested in being a part of the Empowermentors Collective, please join the mailing list and the #empowermentors IRC channel on freenode. If you are an ally to these issues, please help spread the word!

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Ada Initiative at PyCon: Come to our feminist hacker lounge!

Ada Initiative advisors Lukas Blakk and Liz Henry write:

PyCon 2013 logo

At this year’s annual USA Python conference — PyCon in Santa Clara, California, March 15–17 — the Ada Initiative will have a booth  in the Exhibition hall, set up as a feminist hacker lounge.  In partnership with Mozilla, the booth will provide space to chill out during the conference with other attendees.   Brainstorm with feminist Python hackers on projects you’re currently working on or are just now dreaming up!

Throughout the three days of the conference we will have some organized Birds-Of-a-Feather (BOF) events on various topics. Come check out the booth schedule and say hello! Snacks will be provided and we also have fabulous stickers. Previous Python programming experience is not required to hang out with us.

PyCon is close to selling all its tickets, so if you’d like to come, buy your ticket now!

Women at the conference on March 16 may also be interested in the PyLadies lunch, register ASAP to make sure there’s a place for you.

Wikimania 2013 scholarships: contributors to free knowledge, free software, collaborative and/or educational initiatives encouraged to apply

Wikimania 2013, the annual international conference of the Wikimedia movement, will be held from 7–11 August, 2013, in Hong Kong. Applications for travel scholarships are now open and close on February 22.

Eligibility (who can apply for a scholarship): Any active contributor to a Wikimedia project and/or Wikimedia volunteer in any other capacity, from anywhere in the world, is considered eligible. Participants in other free knowledge, free software, collaborative and/or educational initiatives are also encouraged to apply.

Selection: All applications for scholarship are reviewed by the scholarship committee. Applicants will be rated on the following four dimensions: activity within Wikimedia (50% of total score), activity outside Wikimedia (15% of total score), interest in Wikimania and the Wikimedia movement (25% of total score) and fluency of English language (10% of total score).

To apply for a scholarship to aid in covering expenses for Wikimania 2013 in Hong Kong, please submit a completed application form by 22 February 2013 23:59 UTC.

— the editors of the Wikimania 2013 website

For more information, see the Wikimania scholarships page.

Got open tech and culture news to share with women in the Ada Initiative’s community? Email share@adainitiative.org.

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported.

Call for papers: Women in Advanced Computing Summit

Event infomation: WiAC ’13 will be held on June 27, 2013, in San Jose, California. Submissions to the call for papers are due March 13.

The Call for Participation for the 2013 USENIX Women in Advanced Computing Summit (WiAC ’13) is now available. At WiAC ’13, we will continue to bring the technical community together to discuss some of the challenges women face in the professional computing world. Beyond mere discussion, we hope to engage all attendees to share ideas, best practices, and knowledge to move us forward in our professional capacity as technical people.

Topics will depend upon the speakers and workshop facilitators we schedule for the day. We hope to cover such topics as improving your personal brand, dealing with negative people and stereotypes, and finding ways to support yourself or find support. We welcome your ideas to make this a productive day of discourse. Please visit the Call for Participation web page for a more thorough list of possible topics.

Some possible topics for speakers include:

  • “How I got here”: Finding a path to success and lessons learned along the way
  • Getting noticed and receiving recognition for your work
  • Surviving the male-dominated culture of computing
  • Why computing needs more women and what to do about it
  • How to tell if your work environment is toxic and strategies to cope
  • Building your brand (e.g., your public persona in such places as LinkedIn, your résumé; how people perceive you at work)
  • Encouraging other women: those interested in a career in computing, as well as your peers and coworkers

Some possible workshop topics include:

  • How to tell if a company is supportive of women
  • How to write or adapt a solid technical résumé
  • Enabling a work/life balance when work seems to dominate
  • Negotiating: salary, benefits, flexible schedules, etc.
  • Coaching/mentoring: how to get started on either side of the table

The first WiAC in 2012 welcomed teens and college students interested in computing to join the graduate students and professionals at WiAC. Again we welcome young adults to the event and would like to have some break-out sessions that directly address issues they may be facing. See the Call for Participation for more details.

Got open tech and culture news to share with women in the Ada Initiative’s community? Email share@adainitiative.org.