2015 Voices Conference Program
Featured Session: Voices Live Chicago Conference
Location: Aon 200 East Randolph Chicago, IL USA 12-2pm CST Panel: Cracking the Glass Ceiling: Growing Female Technology Professionals Will be streamed on Spreecast and WebEx from 12-2pm CST (You must register to get access to the session - it's free) |
Fri March 13 10:00 PST
Fri March 13 13:00 EST Fri March 13 17:00 UTC Sat March 14 22:30 IST Sat March 14 4:00 Sydney Duration: 2.00 Hours |
Moderators:
Margaret Resce Milkint, Managing Partner, The Jacobson Group; WING Co-Founder; ITF Board Member David Mendelsohn, Managing Partner, DLA Piper; WING Co-Founder Panelists: Danelle Kent, Consultant¸ SWC Technology Partners Danelle is a Certified Project Management Professional (NU) with 4+ years of combined experience in detail oriented technical writing and quality assurance analysis. She currently supports full software lifecycle by facilitating different functional roles including quality assurance analyst, business analyst, and technical writer. Arti Arora, Aon Deanne Hettich, Vice President Practice Leadership, Aon Hewitt Cynthia Clarke, CIO, Mesirow Financial Jeff Hughes, Vice President Information Technology, CNA Marisa Cabrera, IT Rotational Program Participant, CNA Abstract: Despite the strides made recently for women in business, female tech professionals continue to be outpaced by their male counterparts. According to Silicon Valley Bank’s Innovation Economy Outlook survey, less than 50 percent of technology companies have women in the C-suite or serving on the board of directors. Only 19 percent of CIO positions for Fortune 250 companies are held by women. In fact, the gender disparity among technology professionals seems to be increasing in spite of recent gains throughout the workplace. Fewer women are joining the tech workforce and the numbers of female students studying technology is in decline—today only 18 percent of computer science majors are women, compared to 37 percent in the mid-1980s. Add in a continued wage imbalance and a high turnover rate for female tech professionals mid-career and it is clear that there is work to be done. How can we encourage more women to join the technology field and insurance technology in particular? What can be done to break down the barriers to success as a female technology professional? For more information on this panel and their bios, please visit their session page |
Virtual program
Sorted by country, then by title alphabetically. Multiple countries represented in one session are at the top of the program.
Sorted by country, then by title alphabetically. Multiple countries represented in one session are at the top of the program.
ASEA (Association of South-East Asian Nations)
ASEAN Women in Tech
Lucie Newcomb CEO The NewComm Global Group Inc. (USA), Moderator Nuraizah Shamsul Baharin, Managing Director of Madcat World Sdn. Bhd. (Malaysia), Jennifer Kenny, CEO BizTh!nk (Indonesia) Au Soriano, CEO Pinoy Travel (Philippines) Haslina Taib, CEO BAG Networks Sdn Bhd (Brunei) Session length: 1 Hour In celebration of International Women's Day, from Brunei to Malaysia, Indonesia to the Philippines, ASEAN to California and around the world, we will share our experiences and recommendations; celebrate our unique contexts as well as common ground. To read more about these panelists, visit their session page |
Tue March 10 20:00 PST
Tue March 10 23:00 EST Wed March 11 3:00 UTC Wed March 11 8:30 IST Wed March 11 14:00 Sydney |
How Can We Make Interacting With Technology and Science Exciting and Fun Experiences?
Marjan BoorBoor, Master of Technological Socio-Economical Planning (Major in Intelligent Renewable Energy System Planning) Session Length: 30 minutes + 30 minutes networking time How my curiosity took me to science and engineering. How finding my own way of learning made me fall in love with science and technology and how sharing this with others has given them a memorable experience making them curious and innovative in the field. My mission to reach as many people as possible. About Marjan: I have loved math since I was in elementary school, I did a lot of self-educating in math where I find joy and excitement in math. In middle school because of my math grades I was invited to participate in a preparation math course for International Math and computer Olympiad. I have a master degree in Technological Socio Economical planning, majoring in renewable energy system planning and development. My background education is in Mathematic, Physics, Computer science, Artificial intelligence and Robotics, Marketing, Leadership, Project management and innovation and monitoring, Innovative Psychology of learning. I made several intelligent Robots and participated in several artificial intelligent Robocup competitions and participated in Iran, Germany, Netherland and Atlanta international Robocup competition and won several awards. I am the developer of energyplanner.dk which is an intelligence tool for tracing changes in an energy system due to gradual energy transition from fossil fuel to renewable energies that is going to be used by energy planner in Denmark. I have innovative way of learning for science and technology that help you not only become good at it but also enjoy it. I have teach math for years, and my experience have been that factors such as gender, age, and race, background are not determining factors for being good at math and enjoy learning that. |
Thu March 12 7:00 PST
Thu March 12 10:00 EST Thu March 12 14:00 UTC Thu March 12 19:30 IST Fri March 13 1:00 Sydney |
Agile: Savior in Todays Constrained World
Ruby Tomar, Hewlett-Packard (30 minutes) From across the world, 38 million web enabled HP printers are registered to HP’s Web Print Platform (WPP). This cloud platform maintains an active connection with about seventeen million printers at any point in time to process print jobs triggered via E-Mail, Mobile printing or Print (panel) Apps. The business started to fund the development of the next generation of the cloud platform, to cater to emerging technical trends. This paper describes how agile processes were fine tuned to maintain the availability (99.5%) and reliability(99.5%) standards of the WPP with a development team reduced by 50%. |
Sessions will be available as recordings.
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Sustaining Resiliency in Device – Cloud Connectivity Arshiya P, Hewlett Packard (30 minutes) HP’s ePrint Cloud allows printing from anywhere with a Web connection. It is a distributed system with 36+ million printers (and growing) registered out of which ~16M are active at any given point of time. As different printer types have varying development cycles, the team spends a lot of time in ensuring that the device - cloud connectivity is robust and adhering to the specifications. The team was involved resolving a lot of defects due to non-adherence of specs and process etc. This paper describes the conceptualization and development of a tool to validate the solution (cloud to device) while strengthening process checkpointing and enabling nonfunctional validation. |
Predicting the Financial Market Uncertainties Using the Conglomerate of the Elements of Past History, Present Sentiment and the Search Analytics
Vidya Venkiteswaran, Shivangi Saxena & Vishakha Jangid, University of Delhi (Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology) Advisor: Dr. Shampa Chakraverty, Professor & Head, Department of Computer Engineering University of Delhi (Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology) Session Length: 1 Hour Predicting stock market is a strenuous challenge because of the multitudes of factors involved. To be ahead in the predictive analytics, sensing the market from various perspectives has proved to be an intelligent technique. The poster aims to combine the approaches where the past fluctuations when combined with present sentiment and the future searches can predict the flow of the stock market. The project has been visualised for an industry that is predicting the status of the entire conglomerate of companies that make up an industry. |
This session has been cancelled.
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Optimal Execution Of MapReduce Jobs In Cloud
Anshul Aggarwal, Software Engineer, Cisco Systems Session Length: 1 Hour We use MapReduce programming paradigm because it lends itself well to most data-intensive analytics jobs run on cloud these days, given its ability to scale-out and leverage several machines to parallel process data. Research has demonstrates that existing approaches to provisioning other applications in the cloud are not immediately relevant to MapReduce -based applications. Provisioning a MapReduce job entails requesting optimum number of resource sets (RS) and configuring MapReduce parameters such that each resource set is maximally utilized. Each application has a different bottleneck resource (CPU :Disk :Network), and different bottleneck resource utilization, and thus needs to pick a different combination of these parameters based on the job profile such that the bottleneck resource is maximally utilized. The problem at hand is thus defining a resource provisioning framework for MapReduce jobs running in a cloud keeping in mind performance goals such as Optimal resource utilization with Minimum incurred cost, Lower execution time, Energy Awareness, Automatic handling of node failure and Highly scalable solution. |
Tue March 10 21:30 PST
Wed March 11 0:30 EST Wed March 11 4:30:00 UTC Wed March 11 10:00 IST Wed March 11 15:30 Sydney |
A Survey of Estimation and Optimization Techniques Used to Accelerate Design Closure in FPGAs
Padmini Gopalakrishnan, Xilinx Session Length: 1 Hour The number of design starts in FPGAs has been steadily increasing over the last decade. With interconnect delay dominating performance, it becomes important to estimate and react to interconnect delay and congestion as early as possible in the design implementation flow. Essentially the goal is to accelerate and/or enable design closure. While more global decisions are possible at earlier stages in the flow such as logic synthesis, giving more potential for large gains, the estimation accuracy is also very limited. Estimation accuracy is much better later in the flow, such as after placement, but it is also expensive to make large optimization moves at this stage. In this presentation we give an overview of the above tradeoff, and also discuss how the challenges in an FPGA design flow are different from an ASIC design flow. We will then present a survey of published research work in this area, covering both interesting timing and congestion estimation techniques and optimizations that leverage these estimations at different stages in the FPGA design implementation flow. |
This session will be recorded.
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Women Entrepreneurs in the Start-up Space
Suseella Panguluri, Software Engineer, CSC. Winner at Start Up Weekend, Chennai Edition, 2014 Session Length: 1 Hour I would like to encourage women in technology to come up with innovative ideas and bring in the culture of entrepreneurship. Aspiring to be an entrepreneur I am in this fascinating journey for just 6 months now and already thrilled. There are several personal challenges that we face as a women entrepreneur be it managing time between family, work and start-up or be it meeting out new people to start ventures. At the same time, there are technical challenges like identifying and learning new technologies, building the system with low cost open source platforms. In this talk I will share my experiences on how a e-commerce platform can be built leveraging the high-end technologies and will give insights into available open source technologies. |
Wed March 11 2:30 PST
Wed March 11 4:30 EST Wed March 11 9:30 UTC Wed March 11 15:00 IST Wed March 11 21:30 Sydney |
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Strengthen Women Participation in Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation in Malawi
Peter B.G. Joram, Jailosi Kanjanga & Hendreson Chiliza, Lipangwe Organic Manure Demonstration Farm (LOMADEF) Session Length: 1 Hour Food and income provision to underprivileged women through promotion of Conservation Agriculture With Trees. Women being the ones that cares everybody at the family and there is need to empower them with skills and techniques to overcome climate change shocks. Soil degradation rate will be reduced due to the activities conducted by women in a society where high level of soil degradation is experienced hence poor soils and low agricultural yield. Trees incorporated in farming fields will mutually utilized since leaf biomass will contribute to soil health and tree branches will provide fuel wood for household use by women. |
This session will be recorded.
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Building a Women in Technology Community in an Emerging Country
Stephanie Frias, Women in Technology Peru Session Length: 1 Hour Building a community of women in technology in a new country is a fascinating experience. In 2013, a group of four women in Peru decided to create a Women in Technology group that empowers girls to discover a career in technology and supports them to stay in the field. In a country where companies are not used to providing sponsorship for events, this effort required not only four persons, but entire communities that helped us to organize, fund, and coach many events in one year. The team was able to organize a total of 15 events, having a total number of 350+ attendees, 54 volunteers, and grow their member base to 745 persons in one year. In a country where companies sponsorships are rare, a community of Women in Technology was built in Peru in 2013. The effort to build the group required not only an individual effort of four persons, but entire technology communities (i.e. the Python community, Ruby community) in order to organize several events and engage more women to immerse into the tech scene. |
Thu March 12 10:00 PST
Thu March 12 13:00 EST Thu March 12 17:00 UTC Thu March 12 20:30 IST Fri March 13 4:00 Sydney |
Women and CS, Lessons Learned From Turkey
Dr. Umit Yalcinalp, Architect Dr. Gokcen Cilingir, Senior Software Engineer Dr. Gulustan Dogan, Associate Professor Session Length: 1 Hour While interest in computing is steadily declining in US among women, more women are attracted to computing and seeking technical CS degrees in Turkey. In this talk, members of Turkish Women in Computing will discuss the results of ongoing research based on survey conducted on this discrepancy among its members and their connections who are women with computing degrees. We will briefly present the hypotheses previously presented at Global Voices conference in 2014 and how our findings compare with these hypotheses previously presented. We will also talk about our data collection methodology and some interesting surprises we encountered about demographics that affected the results. |
Mon March 9 23:00 PST
Tue March 10 2:00 EST Tue March 10 6:00 UTC Tue March 10 11:30 IST Tue March 10 16:00 Sydney |
Trust as a basis for effectiveness of remote/ virtual teams: Leading to the success of the global projects
Inna Stelmukh, SGS UK Ltd Session Length: 1 Hour Global roll out process for IT systems can be a lengthy and painful process prone to mistakes, significant risks, and considerable costs. Building a strong remote and/or virtual delivery team and involving them from the start of the project can enable more options for the system roll out that would be speedier and of significantly less risk and cost to the business. Knowing the stakeholders from the start of the project and identifying local subject matter experts, leaders and IT talents can help defining a strong multifunctional (cross business if necessary) global team contributing to the project during the entire life cycle but most importantly into the roll out process. Although working as a virtual entity within the international project organisation, each and single team member as a local nominee shall be orientated in a such way that they not only fulfil their specific roles in the team as per the expertise area they’ve been selected for, but must represent its country requirements, and transfer them and all the local knowledge into the global design – build – test phases of the project. In the mean time, the team is united and learning on the job of what are the common and fundamental rules for the new system and therefore become active change management agents locally. Thus, two ways process of the global solutions “localisation” alongside with the centralisation and standardisation processes, so necessary for the successful roll out of the global initiatives, begins from the very start of the project and carries on through all the project stages. |
Wed March 11 7:30 PST
Wed March 11 10:30 EST Wed March 11 14:30 UTC Wed March 11 20:00 IST Thu March 12 1:30 Sydney |
Agility and Cloud Computing
Ambs Kesavan, Xilinx Session Length: 45 minutes The objective of this talk is to share technology trends in cloud computing industry and the opportunities they provide to innovate at scale. The presentation highlights the productivity and economic benefits from adopting this disruptive technology to create a sustained competitive advantage for businesses of all sizes ranging from SMB segment to high end enterprises. |
Tue March 10 19:00 PST
Tue March 10 22:00 EST Wed March 11 2:00 UTC Wed March 11 7:30 IST Wed March 11 13:00 Sydney |
The Art of Strategic Networking
Susan Lucas-Conwell, Innovation Catalyst/CEO/Game-Changer, Growth Resources, Inc. Session Length: 1 Hour Learn how to tap the hidden power of your network. Susan Lucas-Conwell, game changer, talks about networking using the Dorothy Approach. This is a practical session aimed at get where you want to go with resources at your fingertips. Following the talk, there will be Q&A. About Susan: Susan Lucas-Conwell is a global business executive with a proven track record of driving innovation and accelerating revenue growth. Known for her collaborative leadership, she has successfully built teams, communities and strategic alliances in technology, consumer goods and service organizations. An award-winning professional, recent awards and speaking opportunities include: The “Innovator Spotlight Award” (Frost & Sullivan), TedX and The Stevie Gold Award for Women in Business. Susan is currently Chief Innovation Catalyst with Growth Resources Inc., providing strategic advice and operational support to tech start-ups and most recently, Sapphire Ventures. As Global CEO and Board Director at Great Place to Work, she quickly established the brand as the premier global expert in workplace culture and increased annual revenues by 30%. Prior to GPTW, Susan spent five years as CEO of SVForum, the largest not-for-profit in Silicon Valley helping technology start-ups scale their businesses. Much of her career was spent in France at Cartier International and Ray-Ban before founding Clear-Day, a cross-border business accelerator focused on the European market. She moved to the bay area nine years ago. She serves on several Boards, mentors at the Stanford StartX Incubator, and reviews business plans for the National Science Foundation, Astia, The Wharton School. Susan holds an MBA from The Wharton School, an MA in Economic History from Johns Hopkins University and a BA with Honors from University of Wisconsin- Madison. She is married and has four daughters. A self-diagnosed sports junkie, Susan rows for the Bair Island Aquatic Center. |
Mon March 9 8:00 PST
Mon March 9 11:00 EST Mon March 9 15:00 UTC Tue March 10 20:30 IST Tue March 10 2:00 Sydney |
Beyond Venture Capital: Exploring Funding Options for Female Entrepreneurs
Jenn Viane Riese, Angel Investor with Pipeline Fellowship and Entrepreneur Natalia Oberti Noguera, Founder Pipeline Fellowship Vanessa Ting, CEO/Co-Founder, Buyerly and Women's Venture Development Leader Session Length: 1 hour This session will give a voice to women creating funding sources for female entrepreneurs beyond traditional Venture Capital. We will explore ways women investors and female social entrepreneurs are collaborating to create diversity in the investing community. Jenn Viane Riese is the Founder of Modern Humanity Consulting working with organizations and companies to create strategic partnerships, increase funding for philanthropic programs, and align business priorities to support a triple bottom line: people, planet, profits. Jenn can be found advocating on behalf of social entrepreneurs as a mentor and speaker, and investing in companies that are providing agile and innovative solutions to pressing social issues. She enjoys every moment shared with her children, husband, and loyal shepherd on their organic egg farm in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Jenn holds a BA in English from Santa Clara University. Natalia Oberti Noguera, is dubbed “The Coach” by Marie Claire, Natalia (aka Ms. Oberti Noguera) is Founder and CEO of Pipeline Fellowship, an angel investing bootcamp for women that’s changing the face of angel investing and creating capital for women social entrepreneurs. Natalia holds a BA in Comparative Literature & Economics from Yale. She has been featured in Bloomberg Businessweek, Mashable, Reuters Money, TechCrunch, The New York Times, and Fast Company’s Co.Exist Change Generation series. Natalia was named to the Forbes list “Top 20 Women for Entrepreneurs to Follow on Twitter,” as well as Latina.com’s “25 Latinas Who Shine in Tech.” Women’s eNews recognized her as one of 21 Leaders for the 21st Century for 2012 and Business Insider included her on its 2013 list “The 30 Most Important Women in Tech under 30.” You can find Natalia on Twitter (@nakisnakis). Vanessa Ting is a former corporate executive and now a serial entrepreneur and leader in women’s venture development. Vanessa retired her corporate wardrobe to pursue entrepreneurship (and jeans!) after climbing the ladder at companies like Target and Johnson & Johnson Consumer. Her businesses, Retail Path & Buyerly, are both guided by her passion for cultivating women-led businesses. Her belief is that building more successful women-led ventures creates more female investors, who in turn invest in other women-owned businesses. To that end, her work in venture development advances women entrepreneurship by supplying resources and education for sustainable growth. Vanessa holds a BA from University of Southern California and an MBA from Georgetown University. She has 15+ years of experience in consumer packaged goods marketing and retail. She now operates two companies - Retail Path, a retail consulting firm, and award-winning Buyerly, a B2B website that connects Retail Buyers and Emerging Brands for product feedback and wholesale orders. She resides in sunny Los Angeles with her husband and 3 step-sons. |
Fri March 13 9:00 PST
Fri March 13 12:00 EST Fri March 13 16:00 UTC Sat March 14 21:30 IST Sat March 14 3:00 Sydney |
Breaking the Code of Interview Implicit Bias to Value Different Gender Competencies
Bonita Banducci, Banducci Consulting Live at Santa Clara University - Room #330C located on the 3rd floor of the Learning Commons Session Length: 1 hour Implicit Bias Workshops and exercises are being shared widely on the internet. Some of the solutions are: "Determine precisely what skills and attributes you are hiring for." "Ask exactly the same questions to each candidate." But what about the implicit bias in determining what skills you are valuing--beyond traditional management and leadership competencies? How can interviewers recognize the often invisible, unarticulated, undervalued and often misinterpreted competencies of more "relational and collectivist" people--often women and men and women from different cultures? Bonita Banducci teaches Gender and Engineering class in Santa Clara University's School of Engineering Graduate Program. In video and cartoon representation as well as in person, her students apply Gender Competence®--understanding and skills to work with gender (and cultural) differences as competencies--to job interviews both as the interviewer and the interviewee, as men and women. They show how to "mine the gold" of difference for the best candidate AND to get the job as the best candidate while establishing the value of relational competencies in the workplace and marketplace. |
Thu March 12 17:00 PST
Thu March 12 20:00 EST Fri March 13 0:00 UTC Fri March 13 5:30 IST Fri March 13 11:00 Sydney |
Business Intelligence Engineering for Big Data
Ramya Bommareddy Session Length: 1 hour Beyond building and developing information technology applications and teams, we will share our experiences of thriving in a globally distributed organization. As a dynamic duo of Engineering Manager and Engineering lead, we will showcase how we are delivering innovation in Business Intelligence and Data Engineering in an Enterprise Data warehouse setting. We cater to the data and information needs of the business community whose priorities are moving targets. The myth that Agile methodology only works for co-located teams has been busted. Promoting a culture of outside-in-thinking through customer centricity, with focus on quality is the key to success. |
Mon March 9 7:00 PST
Mon March 9 10:00 EST Mon March 9 14:00 UTC Tue March 10 19:30 IST Tue March 10 1:00 Sydney |
Career Boosting Tips for Millennials
Jessica Johnson, Salesforce.com Session Length: 1 Hour Millennials now officially outnumber baby boomers. As millennials, we have become the most discussed generation when it comes to recruiting and managing, but what about managing our careers from our perspective? From the bottom looking up, how do we gain respect and make leaps into the next phases of our careers? When I graduated in the midst of the Great Recession, I knew I would have to pave my own path if I was going to build a flourishing career. From changing diapers as my boss’s nanny to advising Fortune 100 companies as her second-in-command at her technology consulting firm, I received a lot of valuable advice and learned many game-changing lessons. This presentation provides many career-boosting tips that are practical and timely, including how to attain effective mentors and sponsors. We’ll explore how the perception that others have of you can impact your career arc as well as actions you can take to drive your success in the business world. |
Fri March 13 12:00 PST
Fri March 13 15:00 EST Fri March 13 19:00 UTC Sat March 14 0:30 IST Sat March 14 6:00 Sydney |
Change IT!
S. Revi Sterling, University of Colorado Boulder Session Length: 1 Hour Dr. Revi Sterling founded and directs the only Information and Communication Technology for Development graduate program in the United States. This talk would demonstrate how IT (ICT as the rest of the world calls it) has given a quantum boost to international development efforts, and will give examples of what works and what doesn’t when technologists turn humanitarians. This talk will open avenues for technologists of all types and levels to truly make impact with their ideas, while promoting collaboration rather than competition. Sterling will point audiences to helpful resources while catalyzing their creativity. |
Thu March 12 8:00 PST
Thu March 12 11:00 EST Thu March 12 15:00 UTC Thu March 12 20:30 IST Fri March 13 2:00 Sydney |
Communications Platform Provides "Your School at your Fingertips" for Busy Parents
Nirupama Mallavarupu, MobileArq Session Length: 1 Hour MobileArq is a mobile school directory for parents created by a Mother with expertise in Information Technology and a first-hand knowledge of the needs of busy parents with school age children. The mobile directory is the cloud version of the standard print directory, which contains the contact information of all parents and families in the school. The MobileArq app has a logical, easy to use interface through which parents can access school directory information on their mobile devices as well as desktop computers, whenever and wherever they need it. Unlike printed directories, new data can be added and corrections made in real-time so information is always up-to-date, and families can chose to opt out or edit personal contact information easily throughout the school year. MobileArq provides the user the added convenience of calling/emailing/texting and message groups directly from the App. MobileArq's provides PTAs all-in-one portal to manage their communication, fundraising and memberships. MobileArq is the first to also provide APIs for third parties to write applications for parents, teachers and students. |
Mon March 9 13:00 PST
Mon March 9 16:00 EST Mon March 9 20:00 UTC Tue March 10 1:30 IST Tue March 10 7:00 Sydney |
The Confidence Gap: Igniting Brilliance through Feminine Leadership
Lisa Marie Jenkins, Cisco Systems, Lisa Marie Jenkins Consulting Session Length: 1 Hour Evidence shows that women are less self-assured than men, however studies prove confidence is just as important as competence when it comes to advancing a successful career. The confidence gap between men and women is caused by factors that range from upbringing, social conditioning, and biology. Today the 8 most desired characteristics for the modern leader are considered to be feminine, so when women become more courageous, they will naturally become more effective leaders and everyone benefits. In this session, you will: • Begin to learn what it takes to overcome self-doubt and become unstoppable in the face of fear • Develop the courage and clarity to take action and take risks • Understand how confidence combined with core strengths creates powerful and authentic women |
Mon March 9 15:00 PST
Mon March 9 18:00 EST Mon March 9 22:00 UTC Tue March 10 3:30 IST Tue March 10 9:00 Sydney |
Continuous Integration in Agile
Dhanashri Phadke, Symantec Session Length: 30 minutes + 30 minutes networking time Traditional software development methods don't dictate how frequently or regularly you integrate the entire source on a project. This can result in various conflicts and bugs during integration. Using Agile helps overcome this problem with breakdown of work into smaller chunks, prioritizing them and delivering the chunks. Hence Continuous integration (CI) helps provide rapid feedback so that if a defect is introduced into the code base, it can be identified and corrected as soon as possible. Continuous integration software tools can be used to automate the testing and build a document trail. This presentation highlights the use of Agile methodologies for software development and lists various tools available which are useful for Continuous Integration, especially focusing on one such tool - Jenkins. Jenkins is one of the open source continuous integration tools available. It provides the continuous integration services for software development. |
Thu March 12 14:00 PST
Thu March 12 17:00 EST Thu March 12 21:00 UTC Fri March 13 2:30 IST Fri March 13 8:00 Sydney |
Empowering Middle School Girls to Change the World Using Computer Science and Technology
Pooja Chandrashekar, ProjectCSGIRLS & Shreya Shankar, Camp Sci Girl Session Length: 1 Hour The goal of our session is to help teachers, educators, and parents understand the best strategies for inspiring girls to pursue technology and computer science by focusing on the middle school age group. We believe that a large chunk of learning and development occurs during the critical middle school period and when working to close the tech gender gap, it is necessary to focus on the middle school years, when students are most prone to peer pressure and are most easily influenced by stereotypes. We will cover different techniques and methods by which to pique middle school girls’ interest in the technical fields, our experiences and successes with these techniques, and the outreach work that we have done over the past few years. We are both founders of nonprofit organizations working to close the gender gap in technology and computer science and so we will talk about our experiences working directly with middle school students and impact that our work has had. We hope that educators and parents will find the information we share useful and be able to incorporate our methods and strategies into their classrooms or homes. |
Thu March 12 15:00 PST
Thu March 12 17:00 EST Thu March 12 22:00 UTC Fri March 13 3:30 IST Fri March 13 9:00 Sydney |
Empowering Women Technology Startup Founders to Succeed
Ari Horie, CEO & Founder, Women's Startup Lab Session Length: 1 Hour As Founder and CEO of Women's Startup lab, Ari Horie will share her knowledge on the entrepreneurial journey, obstacles facing female technology founders, and her tips and tricks for women looking to overcome these barriers. In addition, Ari will be able to discuss her philosophy, “The Hito Rule,” which calls on women to not only lean in, but on and up their communities to gather the skills, network, and support needed to advance their companies and how she has successfully implemented this philosophy during her own entrepreneurial journey. |
Mon March 9 10:00 PST
Mon March 9 13:00 EST Mon March 9 17:00 UTC Tue March 10 22:30 IST Tue March 10 4:00 Sydney |
Heart Rate Variability and the Digital Health Revolution
Ronda Collier, SweetWater Health Session Length: 1 Hour According to leading medical institutions such as Stanford, Harvard and the Mayo Clinic, stress is responsible for more than 90% all disease. Most people are stressed to some degree and many are not aware of it. This may be due to the fact that the brain is a giant filter and pattern matcher. When a condition becomes familiar the brain filters it out, even if it is not good for you. HRV is the latest buzz word in the digital health revolution. It provides an objective measure of the stress or “fight or flight” response in your nervous system, and insight into situations, thoughts and behaviors that cause stress. In addition, it is a measure of systemic health and is an early indicator for heart disease and hypertension. Legacy HRV measurement systems were expensive, bulky and did not provide meaningful feedback for the general population. Thanks to mobile platforms such as smart phones and tablets, HRV is available to the consumer, providing an accurate and easy way to measure and manage the weak link in the chain, also known as stress. |
Thu March 12 13:00 PST
Thu March 12 16:00 EST Thu March 12 20:00 UTC Fri March 13 1:30 IST Fri March 13 7:00 Sydney |
How Cisco Improved Marketing Productivity Using Big Data
Reena Tiwari, Cisco Systems Session Length: 1 Hour Big data is drastically changing many aspects of business, but marketing is among the most heavily impacted. Prospects and customers communicate through many channels and making sense of all of that data is forcing the invention and adoption of new tools and techniques. This will improve customer experience and ultimately increase sales. Our process to qualify a contact and predict that the contact is ready to buy is very complex and takes a long time. By the time someone understands the all activities of a contact, calls the contacts to verify and then convert, the contact may have moved on. We have successfully built statistical models to convert a contact into a lead, at a much faster pace and without human interference. This session will cover ➢ How Cisco was able to leverage techniques like machine learning to understand different activities and behavior of contacts from different channels. ➢ Details on the machine learning models Cisco developed to create “no-touch” leads. Big Data statistical models create leads instead of humans. Using these models, Cisco has been able to accelerate sales and marketing productivity due to higher conversion of leads. |
Fri March 13 13:00 PST
Fri March 13 16:00 EST Fri March 13 20:00 UTC Sat March 14 1:30 IST Sat March 14 7:00 Sydney |
How to Make it to 30+
Kellie Conrad, Cisco Systems Session Length: 1 Hour There is a how to for everything, except for life in your 20's. Women in our 20's face unprecedented challenges in an age where we are told all that matters is how "successful" we are in business. We are told the only way to get there is to pay astronomical amounts of money for higher education. From preschool to graduating with an undergraduate degree in the US, most people follow the exact same education and life path. The only major differences occur in what pair of shoes, extracurricular activities, and friends we choose. All your life you are told the golden ticket to the 100k, fulfilling, and world changing job is waiting for you at the end of the college stage. Once you get that diploma, you will be fine. My girlfriends and I are all well on our way to making it to 30 and beyond. We have learned several lessons along the way. We all struggle and our mistakes are universal and can be shared, learned from, and prevented for others. The most valuable lessons to learn in your 20's: 1. How and why to get into technology 2. How to thrive in a man’s world without becoming one 3. How to stay in technology and work your way up the jungle gym 4. How to avoid, get out of, and stay out of personal debt |
Fri March 13 8:00 PST
Fri March 13 11:00 EST Fri March 13 15:00 UTC Sat March 14 20:30 IST Sat March 14 2:00 Sydney |
How to Remain Easy When You Are Busy
Punam Nagpal, Technical Leader and Global Chairperson for Cisco WISE (Women in Science and Engineering) ERO, Cisco Systems Session Length: 1 Hour All leaders are challenged by corporate and business pressures of high-stress, high-impact positions, but women seem to feel the impact juggling them with the personal demands of family and personal life. It can take a high toll to keep multiple balls in the air while new ones come at you from surprising angles and each one coming faster and faster. So how can we ease the stress load? How can we remain easy while being ever busy? Many leaders talk about work/life integration but most of us agree that there is no fixed boundary between work life and personal life. We take work home and at work we have to schedule doctor's appointments etc. What is the metric, which can tell me if work/life integration is working out well for me? We can't afford a nervous breakdown or falling into depression. Data is showing how more and more people are taking anti-depressants. Women experience two times more depression than men. Women are quitting professional jobs for many reasons. We have shortage of women talent in hi-tech industry. How do we retain women talent and inspire younger generation to take STEM as their career? There is a way to strike a balance but it has to do with our internal "ecology", namely, how we process the mountains of demands placed on us. It has to do with recognizing what we're really responsible for and what we're not responsible for. We treat ourselves as machines by not giving ourselves time and space to be creative. We are human beings, not human doings! There are few simple tools and tips, which can be very helpful to remain cool, calm and collected. These tips can make you more effective and efficient in your professional and personal life. |
Fri March 13 14:00 PST
Fri March 13 17:00 EST Fri March 13 21:00 UTC Sat March 14 2:30 IST Sat March 14 8:00 Sydney |
Innovation – A Destination and a Journey
Valeria Mihalache, Xilinx Session Length: 1 Hour We live in a time when change happens at lightning speed, all around us. The only way for companies to be competitive is to innovate, not only with respect to their product offering, but also with respect to their marketing and to their work processes. Moreover, all organizations need innovation in order to stay ahead in the game. Non-profit organizations need to bring innovation in their processes to attract more donors; schools need to innovate with respect to the teaching methods, as well as with respect to the programs they offer, for instance to take advantage of the latest technologies available, or to engage the students more in the learning process. In this presentation we will focus on innovation and on its two good companions, creativity and invention. We will talk about the differences between the three, while also showing the intrinsic connection between them. Giving real-life examples, we will talk about different types on innovation. We recognize that innovativeness is an elusive trait, that one cannot predict how innovative somebody will be in his or her position. Nevertheless, there are certain things that organizations can do to allow for and to stimulate the innovativeness of their employees/members. We will talk about processes that organizations can use in order to inspire and foster innovation. |
Mon March 9 9:00 PST
Mon March 9 12:00 EST Mon March 9 16:00 UTC Tue March 10 21:30 IST Tue March 10 3:00 Sydney |
The Language of Leadership
Caroline Simard, Research Director at Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University Session Length: 1 Hour Language can influence our perceptions of men and women, and the potential each has to lead. In this session, we discuss the language of leadership and the role bias can play in shaping different leadership outcomes for men and women. The session will offer strategies for individuals and managers to examine and sharpen their own voices and their advocacy of others, with an aim to advance women’s leadership and create effective organizations where all employees thrive. |
Wed March 11 10:00 PST
Wed March 11 13:00 EST Wed March 11 17:00 UTC Wed March 11 22:30 IST Thu March 12 4:00 Sydney |
Measure Impact, Not Activity
Karen Catlin, Karen Catlin Consulting LIVE - At Santa Clara University, Room #330C located on the 3rd floor of the Learning Commons Session Length: 45 minutes Most women’s affinity groups measure their activity. How many events they’ve run, how many people attended each event, and the like. What’s often missing is a vision of what will be different because of the group’s impact and how to measure it. Frankly, I'm not surprised. That's exactly what I did when I ran the women's group at Adobe Systems. I founded that group in 2008, and while I'm proud of our accomplishments, I didn't measure our impact. I honestly don't think I knew how to. At the time, calculating the return on investment seemed like a holy grail. I've since realized how important it is to measure the impact of an affinity group and how to go about doing so. In this talk, I will provide practical tips for identifying the vision, gaining support, defining the strategy for achieving it, and measuring the impact. |
Thu March 12 16:00 PST
Thu March 12 19:00 EST Thu March 12 23:00 UTC Fri March 13 4:30 IST Fri March 13 10:00 Sydney |
![]() Mentors and Role Models - Best Practices in Many Cultures
Katy Dickinson, Founder, Mentoring Standard Session Length: 1 Hour Mentoring is a professional methodology with remarkably good payback. This talk will present how mentors, mentees, and their home organizations can make the most of this best practice, including how to start up and measure a mentoring program. Examples will come from successful corporate, governmental, and school-based mentoring programs in Brazil, China, India, the USA, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Program success in one Engineering company was measured at over 1,000% return on investment (ROI) with more than twice the normal promotions, 93% satisfaction, 88% mentors working remotely from mentees in 30 global sites, and 70% executive mentors. Many of the stories will come from the U.S. State Department's TechWomen mentoring program for STEM professional women. Since 2011, 250 mentors from 89 Silicon Valley companies have hosted TechWomen Emerging Leaders from the Middle East and Africa who then return to their home countries to be mentors and role models for girls and young women. Illustrations for the talk will come from sources including the "Notable Women in Computing Card Deck" Kickstarter project and the "TechWomen Emerging Leaders from the Middle East and Africa" project. About Katy: Katy Dickinson designs and manages successful mentoring programs in the Americas, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and Asia. She has held senior executive roles at Everwise, People to People, MentorCloud, Huawei, and Sun Microsystems. At Sun, she created and managed the global Engineering mentoring programs for ten years, after creating and managing the Sun Labs archiving system, the Software development life cycle process, and other large corporate infrastructure. Katy Dickinson was the Process Architect for the first class of the U.S. State Department’s TechWomen mentoring program for the Middle East and Africa. She is an Accredited Mentor, University of the South - School of Theology, Education for Ministry program. Member of the Anita Borg Institute Advisory Board. Lecturer for the University of California at Berkeley Engineering class on entrepreneurship. Katy Dickinson was graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with high honors and distinction. She is an author, speaker, and popular blogger. |
Wed March 11 8:30 PST
Wed March 11 11:30 EST Wed March 11 15:30 UTC Wed March 11 21:00 IST Thu March 12 2:30 Sydney |
Spatial Temporal Reasoning Over Play-Scripts for Artificially Intelligent Characters
Christine Talbot, University of North Carolina/Salesforce.com Session Length: 1 Hour The objective of this session is to present current research in AI consisting of creating an Artificially Intelligent Director. The key here is the set of algorithms utilized to transform a standard play-script into spatial temporal directions for AI characters within a virtual environment. We review not only a fully AI scripted set of characters, but also the incorporation of one or more human characters in the scene, which affects the AI characters’ movements. We will review the results of experiments which show both the quantifiable evidence of the algorithms’ accuracy, as well as the qualitative results of user perception of these scenes. |
Mon March 9 11:00 PST
Mon March 9 14:00 EST Mon March 9 18:00 UTC Tue March 10 11:30 IST Tue March 10 5:00 Sydney |
Speak Out! How to Advance Your Ideas and Thinking, and Change the World as We Know It
Roberta Guise, Guise Marketing & PR Session Length: 1 Hour This presentation will take what attendees already know in their field, and focus it in such a way that they create a breakthrough success path to achieve being acknowledged as a go-to authority or thought leader in their field. We will cover: • What a thought leader is • Who becomes a go-to authority or thought leader • Barriers and obstacles, especially those because of gender • The six steps for becoming a thought leader These tools create a conscious decision to break through the pack and transform from excellent to that singular, one-of-a-kind authority that unmistakably distinguishes you as a sought-after, talked-about professional in your field who makes a difference in people’s lives. |
Thu March 12 18:00 PST
Thu March 12 21:00 EST Fri March 13 1:00 UTC Fri March 13 6:30 IST Fri March 13 12:00 Sydney |
Strategies for Keeping a Laser Focus On Your Vision Without Going Crazy
Lisa Kaczmarczyk, PhD, Program Evaluation and Assessment Consulting Session Length: 1 Hour There seem to be a million books out there telling the would be entrepreneur how to be successful but very few of them address the solopreneur with a vision who doesn’t start out with all her ducks in a row. Several years ago I found myself unexpectedly running my own business; what started out as a way to survive turned rapidly into an opportunity to leverage my academic and industry computer science experience to make a positive difference in the world. I learned a lot about how to run my own consulting business and maintain my psychic well being that wasn’t in any of the books I read. In particular, I learned a lot about how to heavily organize and focus my activities without turning into an automaton. I also fell into some traps in spite of thinking I’d done all my homework. In this talk I’m going to share organizational strategies and tactics that have helped me establish myself as a successful solopreneur. My intent is to provide concrete actions you can adapt to your own situation. I will provide insight into what I knew, what I wish I had known, what I learned. Many people took the time to share their experiences and ideas with me and now I’d like to share mine with you. About Lisa: Lisa is a computer scientist who runs her own consultancy conducting program evaluation and assessment. Her clients include technology companies, non-profit organizations, university faculty and K-12 school districts. Many of her projects stress STEM education and outreach to under-represented groups. In her not so copious spare time Lisa is an enthusiastic adjunct computer science faculty. Some time ago, Lisa was awarded her PhD at the University of Texas at Austin where her research wove together computer science, science education and psychology. She has worked in technical positions at large technology corporations and small startups and has taught computer science courses at colleges and universities across the United States. Lisa is the author of “Computers and Society: Computing for Good” Chapman & Hall/CRC Textbooks in Computing (2012). Lisa is on the advisory board of Global Tech Women, an organization supporting the personal and professional needs of technical women, is a founding board member of UX Speakeasy, a social, networking and educational group for User Experience professionals, is an Associate Editor and quarterly columnist for ACM Inroads Magazine. Lisa is highly active on social media, and currently taking on the challenge of engaging the computer science community in the science communication community. |
Mon March 9 16:00 PST
Mon March 9 19:00 EST Mon March 9 23:00 UTC Tue March 10 4:30 IST Tue March 10 10:00 Sydney |
The Phases of Transition: The End is Just the Beginning
Bertita Graebner, Ph.D: Author, Conversationalist, Listener Session Length: 1 Hour Dr. Graebner helps us track down what is set in a verbal culture and, better yet, what underlying assumptions can be galvanized in a change process. She teaches us to listen with our ears and with our imagination until we hear both what is spoken and what, though unspoken, moves people's attitudes, as well as their planning and decision-making. As she herself uses the listening approach, she models for us the way to catalyze change by way of the listening heart. Author of: A New Tree of Knowledge: Metaphor in a Christian Community, a reviewed monograph, which is available on Amazon. Contributor to: Co-creating Happiness: Stories from Around the World, Dr. Graebner's contribution is found as one of 100 from 43 countries on pages: 86-87, which is available as a Kindle Book on Amazon. |
Fri March 13 16:00 PST
Fri March 13 19:00 EST Fri March 13 23:00 UTC Sat March 14 4:30 IST Sat March 14 10:00 Sydney |
Women’s INpowerment: The First-ever Global Survey to Hear Voice, Value and Vision of Today’s Young Women
Jin In, 4Girls GLocal Leadership (4GGL) Session Length: 1 Hour Today, it is almost indisputable that EMPOWERMENT of girls and women is required for sustainable development. Whether poverty, violence and terrorism, or population explosion, as stated by Kofi Annan, 7th Secretary General of the United Nations, “There is no tool for development more effective than the empowerment of women.” And yet, what do we really know about empowerment of women, particularly at the global level? One global monitor is the Millennium Development Goals. Specifically, Goal 3 is to promote gender equality and empower women. However, when examined in details, its one target is to eliminate gender disparity in education, and its four indicators are: 1. Ratio of girls to boys in primary, secondary and tertiary education; 2. Ratio of literate women to men, 15-24 years old; 3. Share of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector; and 4. Proportion of seats held by women in national parliament Another is the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report. Here it specifically states that it ranks countries according to gender equality, NOT women’s empowerment. Therefore, what may be THE GAP in gender gap is empowerment. And to begin our understanding and knowledge, 4GIRLS GLOCAL LEADERSHIP (4GGL) created and launched the first-ever global survey to hear voices, values, and vision of today’s young women around the world. Our goal for this Conference is to share our initial findings, as well as begin a critical conversation about empowerment – the most powerful tool for change. What to read more about Jin In? Check out her website. You can also read her story, a fascinating read! |
Wed March 11 11:00 PST
Wed March 11 14:00 EST Wed March 11 18:00 UTC Wed March 11 23:30 IST Thu March 12 5:00 Sydney |
Your Roadmap for an Extraordinary Future
Shawna Corden PCC, PMP, Executive Coach at Hewlett-Packard Session Length: 1 Hour Every life and career plan has ‘detours’, some are beneficial albeit unplanned. Recognize the perfection and opportunity in these ‘speed bumps.’ See the opportunity to reach out and share with others to achieve goals. Using mapquest’s driving directions as an analogy- Walk participants through a ‘flow chart’ of values, desires and outrageous goals they have for themselves that will still be reached even with unplanned obstacles. |
Mon March 9 14:00 PST
Mon March 9 17:00 EST Mon March 9 21:00 UTC Tue March 10 2:30 IST Tue March 10 8:00 Sydney |