The weeks leading up to the annual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing are generally the busiest of the year for the Anita Borg Institute staff. This year was no exception, as the conference to be held next week (Sept. 30 – Oct. 3 in Tucson, AZ) has sold out and kept us scrambling.
As the conference drew closer and preparations heated up, our blog here on anitaborg.org fell silent. But ABI staff, GHC conference leadership, and community volunteers from industry and academia have been very busy over on the GHC Bloggers site, where a host of useful information has been posted about the upcoming conference.
I love reading the excitement of the volunteers as they anticipate the conference. But the posts that have touched the ABI staff most have been those from bloggers reflecting back on what they gained by attending Grace Hopper in the past:
- Inspiration
- Motivation
- Learning
- Role models
- Confidence gained
- Risks taken
- Jobs found
- Mentors created
- Connections made and deepened
- Community found and created
These statements of impact on educations, careers, and personal lives remind our hardworking staff why we’re doing what we do. Here are a few posts that really bring home the impact of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing:
- Why Patty’s Glad She Went to GHC
- Last year’s Grace Hopper Conference caused a chain reaction in my life
- My Splendid GHC08 Experience by Erin “Ed” Donahue