ACM-W Europe May 2022 Newsletter

 

In this issue:

 

ACM-W Europe 10-year Anniversary

This May we celebrate the 10th Anniversary of ACM-W Europe. This journey has been one of growth and friendship as we build our member network. We have many events planned to celebrate our anniversary including a gala later in the year. However, it is fitting that the celebration focuses on our valued members. It is our members that have volunteered to support each other, and network together to promote women in all aspects of the computing field.

 

womENcourage – Celebration of Women in Computing

Call for Expressions of Interest for 2024

It’s this time of the year when we are opening a call for hosting womENcourage 2024.

Here is the timeline:

EoI submission deadline: 10 November 2022 23:59 AoE

Notification of a successful EoI: by 28 November 2022

Full Proposal deadline: 26 January 2023 23:59 AoE

Notification of a successful Proposal: by 1 March 2023

More details here.

2022 in Larnaka, Cyprus

In 2022, womENcourageTM invites the Arts to join our celebration! The theme of this year’s celebration is  “Drawing New Lines in Science”. This year’s ACM womENcourage 2022 recognises that both the Arts and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) share a focus on creative thinking, problem-solving and experiential, immersive learning. We are celebrating ways in which the Arts relate to STEM, often referred to as STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics). The venue for womENcourage 2022 will be the campus of the University of Central Lancashire, Cyprus (UCLan Cyprus). Find out more and take a virtual tour of the campus here.

Event Dates: 21-23 September 2022
Extended Abstracts (and optionally posters) due: 25 May 2022
Detailed Workshop/Tutorials Proposals due: 3 June 2022
Scholarship applications due: 10 June 2022
Registration Open: 6 June 2022
Hackathon Registration: 25 July – 21 September 2022

Blog – Telling Our Stories: Cliodhna Caffrey

Each year we meet incredible women at womENcourage™ celebrations. We ask womENcourage participants to tell their stories in blog posts. We continue 2022  with Cliodhna Caffrey studying food science and health at the University of Limerick, Ireland.. 

“When I was in secondary school, science or computing subjects were not available, nor were they encouraged. It was only at leaving cert level, where a teacher encouraged me to study engineering for my final exams did I realise my passion for science which later turned into an interest in computing. When choosing a third level course, I decided to link my passion for science with my passion for positive health. Since joining the course, I have learned so much about the importance of computing, particularly within the industry. During my studies, I have used basic computer validation systems along with improving my skill set in coding.”

Read more from Cliodhna on our blog.

 

 

1st ACM Celebration of Women in Computing: AfricaCWIC 2022

The 1st ACM Celebration of Women in Computing: AfricaCWIC 2022 was held on May 11 and 12 with the theme of “Building Revolutionary Digital Mindsets” virtually. The event included a Hackathon, Workshops, Poster Presentations, a Doctoral Consortium, Technical Talks and Panel Discussions. The participants met our supporters in the Career Fair to give them a chance to find the answers for their career goals. The keynote and invited speakers Mrs Lola Aworanti-Ekugo, Dr. Timnit Gebru and Mmaki Jantjies had great presentations and they kept the audience captivated. The event was managed brilliantly by the chairs Bukola Onashoga, Rosemary Quilling and Audrey Mbogho, and inspired the participants: 

“Thank you so much for this amazing conference. It was very insightful and I am inspired to register and become an ACM member and possibly open or join a chapter. Thank you so much to all of you who are making a difference in our beautiful world.”

The ACM-W steering committee with Reyyan Ayfer, Ruth Lennon and Rukiye Altin are grateful to all of the participants from across the globe. Thank you to the over 100 attendees at the first ever AfricaCWIC 2022.

The event will be held yearly to support women in Africa. As we are looking forward to next year’s event, we invite applicants to serve on the organizing committee. If you are interested in this opportunity, please e-mail africacwic@acm.org.

 

ACM-W Europe Social Media Highlights

Not on social media? Not a problem. In April-May 2022, our most popular post on Facebook were:

  1. Our 10th anniversary post.
  2. ACM-W Europe 10-year #Anniversary – We will continue to thank our members throughout the year and in April we thanked Dorota Filipczuk, who is part of the womENcourageTM Steering Committee and has served as Hackathon Chair in the celebration for several years.  “It all may sound trivial, but growing within the ACM-W Europe community, from a student member to the womENcourage Steering Committee member, I got a practical lesson of leadership which I don’t think I would have got anywhere else at such an early stage of my career.” Read more in our April Newsletter.
  3. womEncourage video: Let’s celebrate #women in #computing while “Drawing New Lines in Science”. Join #womENcourage2022 in Cyprus and discover the island’s rich history and culture! Who can’t wait? Watch the video to learn more about the host.

On Twitter, the top tweet was about womENcourage deadline extension. We are looking forward to your abstracts. Our top media tweet was the ACM-W announcement on volunteer opportunities. We hope you have applied!

 

Like our ACM-WE Facebook page, follow us on Twitter (@acmweurope) or Linkedin to get the updates.

 

Announcements and News

ACM Elects Yannis Ioannidis as President

ACM has elected Yannis Ioannidis as President for a two-year term beginning July 1. Ioannidis is a Professor of Informatics & Telecom at the University of Athens, Greece, and a Fellow of ACM and IEEE. An ACM member since 1983, he has served as ACM Secretary/Treasurer (2018–2020), SIGMOD Chair (2009–2013) and Vice-Chair (2005–2009), and as a member of the ACM Europe Council, the SIG Governing Board Executive Committee, and the ACM Publications Board. Currently he serves on the ACM Digital Library Board, is a CACM associate editor, the faculty advisor of the ACM Student Chapter of his university, and will chair the ACM Europe Council Working Group on summer schools, having organized the Council’s first three summer schools on the topic of Data Science. In 2017 he received the ACM SIGMOD Contributions Award.

Also elected to two-year terms were Vice President Elisa Bertino, Professor of Computer Science at Purdue University, ACM Fellow, former Secretary/Treasurer, and 2019–2020 ACM Athena Lecturer; and Secretary/Treasurer John West, Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Texas Advanced Computing Center and a founding officer and current Chair of SIGHPC.

President, Vice President and Secretary/Treasurer serve two-year terms from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2024.

In addition, Members-at-Large elected to four-year terms are Rashmi Mohan, Senior Engineering Manager at Splunk Inc., and Michelle Zhou, co-founder and CEO of Juji, Inc. They will serve four-year terms from July 1, 2022 to June 30, 2026.

 

Open PhD and Post-doc Positions

The Walter Benjamin Programme enables researchers in the postdoctoral training phase to independently conduct their own research project at a location of their choice. The project can be carried out at a research institution in Germany or abroad, with the host institution providing support for the project.

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) is now expanding its existing funding measures for academics who have fled their home country by opening up the Walter Benjamin Programme with the aim of enabling this target group to become integrated into the German research system. In the current situation, this practical support measure for refugee researchers from all regions of the world is also an expression of solidarity with researchers from Ukraine as well as persecuted researchers from Russia. 

Deadlines: Proposals may be submitted at any time.

 

ACM Awards and Advanced Grades of Membership Deadlines

Each year ACM recognizes outstanding achievements of its members through awards that cover a spectrum of professional and technological areas and different stages of professional development. 

To learn more about awards, we recommend the article by the ACM President Cherri M. Pancake, who dispels some common myths about ACM Awards and Honors in the Communications of the ACM, August 2019. One of the myths is that the ACM Awards never honour people working outside North America. Prof. Pancake writes that even though nothing would make ACM committees happier than to recognise the achievements of people from around the globe, there are very few nominations. Source: Dispelling Common Myths About ACM Awards and Honors.

Students
Early Career
Mid Career
Late Career
Area-Specific, typically Mid to Late Career

For SIG-specific Awards, please visit here.

For ACM Advanced Grades of Membership, please visit here.

 

Thank you for joining us in recognizing the accomplishments of ACM Women in Europe and ensuring they are nominated for ACM Awards they deserve.

 

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