European women in computing

Abstract

For several years, ACM-W has been an active advocate for women in computing. With ACM's increasing international membership, regional Councils have been created and groups within them are taking up this same mission. Two years ago, the ACM Europe Council formed ACM-WE to sponsor European initiatives for women in computing. Europe, of course, is by no means homogenous with respect to the involvement of women in computing, although many commonalities exist. A goal of ACM-WE is to promote an image of computing that would be more attractive to women. In addition, we seek to provide information about the many different kinds of careers available to women to help them envision a future in computing. Inspired by events such as the Grace Hopper and ACM-W celebrations in the U.S., one of the first activities of ACM-WE was to create a European conference that would encourage women in their computing careers. The first ACM-WE womENcourage conference was held last March in Manchester, England. Attracting more than 200 attendees (both male and female) from 28 countries, this event sought to highlight technical accomplishments of women in the field as well as to provide opportunities for young women to meet others and develop professionally. Technical keynote presentations from women in computing as well as posters from young women currently studying computing furthered these goals. A special emphasis was placed on providing networking and career opportunities for the next generation of computing professionals. Through funding from industry supporters and ACM-W, 54 computing students from 26 countries received travel stipends that allowed them to participate in the conference. A conference highlight for these participants was the career fair, featuring our seven industrial supporters (Google, Intel, Facebook, Bloom-berg, Microsoft Research, Yahoo! Labs, and Cisco). An " unconference " feature also allowed attendees to cluster into facilitated discussion groups around topics selected that day by the participants themselves. The second womENcourage conference will be held in Sweden, Sept. 24–26, 2015, hosted by Uppsala University. We invite anyone who wishes to help organize the conference to contact us at acm-w-europe@acm.org. Volunteers are welcome to help both with technical aspects (program committee positions) as well as operational aspects (such as career fair organization and networking events arrangements). In addition to the womENcourage conferences, we are establishing Friends of ACM-WE to bring together industry, universities, and non-government organizations to help increase the visibility of women in computing. We will be looking …