2016 Grace Hopper Conference Recap

I have just returned from a whirlwind 3 days from the Anita Borg’s Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Tech 2016 Conference held in Houston, TX. It is THE largest gathering of women technologists in the world!. This year’s theme is Be The Change. The conference is aimed at supporting and informing women on the state of diversity in corporate, non-profit sectors and academia. Astounding in it’s scope, women from around the world were represented. The highest echelons of the tech world were in attendance: Google, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, Intel, Microsoft, Apple, etc. Also well represented were members of academia: Harvard, Stanford, CalTech, Brown, Dartmouth, etc.

Speakers included:

Some facts:

The atmosphere and dynamics were amazing! We started the Day 1 off with 2 fantastic keynote speakers:  Ginni Rometty, CEO of IBM and Latanaya Sweeney, Ph.D, Harvard. Ms. Rometty made the distinction between comfort and growth and the 2 cannot co-exist. Dr. Sweeney: ” I would like to see society harness [students] energy and get others thinking about innovative solutions to pressing problems.”

 Track topics included technical subjects (cryptography, security, gaming, data-science, tools), Career Growth, D&I (Diversity & Inclusion), product talks (drones, biocomputing, AI, IoT, Self-Driving Cars) – in total, 8 different tracks. We filled the center where Houston Rockets play to the rafters.

Originally, I registered without any expectations and was truly blown away by the magnitude and scale of the conference; not to mention the organization and content of the talks themselves. I attended a talk on how important it is to ensure fairness in the interview process and tools to help with that. Susan Cain talked about the power of the Introvert (you can catch her TED talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0KYU2j0TM4). My conversation with Brian Krazanich (CEO, Intel) was also enlightening. I asked how best to affect change from the grassroots-level at a private tech company. In brief, his answer was – to start by having the conversation. In his talk, Krazanich emphasized his commitment to achieving total representation in the Intel workforce by the year 2020.

 Wrapping up the conference were 2 more great keynotes. The first was Marc Benioff whose company, Salesforce, recently achieved total gender pay equity.  (https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2016/03/equality-at-salesforce-equal-pay.html) and Megan Smith, the first female Chief Technology Officer of the US, appointed by President Obama in 2014. “We know that diversity can sometimes be more uncomfortable because things are less familiar – but it gets the best results.” Her emphasis on introducing computer science and coding early in education was thought-provoking!

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the After-Parties! I attended evening events sponsored by Google, Uber, AirBnB, and Prudential. All had a Women-in-tech twist, some were simply fun parties, others were elaborate sit-down meals accompanied by motivating speakers. Networking was inevitable at these events – I met and had great conversations with so many amazing women.

After the keynotes on Day 1, much of the day was comprised of a Job Fair with major tech firms  recruiting from amongst attendees (bring your resume and business cards!) There were success stories, awards for top firms recruiting women and URMs, academic research data on the efficacy of a diverse workforce. In short, more than I can describe in one short blog post.