Indo European ACM Celebration of Women in Computing: A Decade Celebration
The first Indo European ACM Celebration of Women in Computing: A Decade Celebration was virtually held on June 22, 2023. ACM-W Europe and ACM-W India are both having their 10th year anniversary and within this event, many great experiences and memories were shared with the participants. ACM-W Global Chair Ruth Lennon welcomed us with her encouraging speech. ACM-W India Chair Heena Timani and ACM-W Europe Chair Rukiye Altin shared the list of activities done in their regions.
ACM-W India Treasurer Rutvi Shah chaired the first panel about chapter experiences. We had great guests from both regions who talked about their experiences. ACM Women Trondheim Vice Chair Anna Szlavi, who is also a postdoctoral researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), shared her experiences with being part of the chapter. She also talked about womENcourageTM as NTNU is going to host 2023 event in September. Elif Şen, who is ACM Bilkent (Turkey) Chair, showed how an ACM chapter can inspire women in other fields as well with the activities they have been running at Bilkent University. Dr. Geetanjali Kale, who is Chair of ACM-W Pune Professional Chapter (India), inspired us with the amazing works they have been doing. Her words “Collaboration is a key to success” encouraged all of us to have more collaborative works. Shreya Sharma, Chair of the ACM-W chapter at ABESEC (India) and Shagun Kesarwani, Secretary of the ACM-W chapter at ABESEC (India), told us about their journey through ACM-W. We are all inspired by the works that are run by ACM-W chapters a lot.
The second panel of the event was chaired by Dorota Filipczuk who is ACM-W Europe Vice Chair. The guests of our panel were the founders of both regions. Reyyan Ayfer, founder of ACM-W Europe and Arati Dixit, past chair of ACM-W India, told us how the idea of starting regional ACM-W became alive. We also would like to thank Dr. Sheila Anand for taking the first step in building ACM-W India.
Thank you to everyone who was with us during this special event. We hope to have another collaborative event with ACM-W India soon.