ACM-W Europe May 2023 Newsletter

 

In this issue:

 

womENcourage™ – Celebration of Women in Computing

Join us in Trondheim, Norway on 20-22 September 2023

 

womENcourage™ 2023 will take place at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway, on 20-22 September, 2023. The theme of the conference is Computing Connecting Everyone. 

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion 

We organise our conference based on AMC’s statement that anyone, from any background, should feel encouraged to participate and contribute to ACM. Differences – in age, race, gender and sexual orientation, nationality, physical ability, thinking style and experience – bring richness to our efforts in providing quality programs and services for the global computing community.

Our DEI chair this year at the conference is Birgit Penzenstadler.

Birgit is an Associate Professor at the Chalmers University of Technology and an Adjunct Professor at the Lappeenranta University of Technology.  She is an Embodied Mindfulness Coach and a 500-RYT yoga teacher with special certification in breathwork.

She has been investigating well-being, resilience, and sustainability from a point of view of software engineering during the past ten years, working on a body of knowledge and concepts of how to support sustainability from within RE. Part of these efforts are documented with the Karlskrona Alliance that published a body of work including the Karlskrona Manifesto (see also http://www.sustainabilitydesign.org).

She gave a TEDx talk in 2022 in Goeteborg about how wellbeing, resilience and sustainability are connected and how to consider them when designing technology. 

Birgit helped to elicit the actions at womENcourage that we are taking this year for inclusion:

  1. We established a diverse organization committee in terms of gender, age, and ethnicity.
  2. We solicited sponsorships to provide over 70 fellowships to support attendees who otherwise might not have the funds to participate.
  3. We request adherence to the ACM Code of Conduct. If you feel it has been violated or if you feel uncomfortable for any reason at any point during the conference, please approach Birgit.
  4. In the registration form, we asked how to accommodate you best
    (accessibility, dietary registrations, what would make you feel welcomed)
  5. We have provision for impaired sight or hearing as well as wheelchair accessible premises.
  6. We briefed all workshop organizers and presenters in terms of accessibility of their content material (e.g., readability of slides), diversity in examples (if applicable), and inclusiveness in their wording.
  7. We provide a meet & greet place as well as a quiet room at the conference.

Connect with her on social media as @twinkleflip

Poster, Workshop & Tutorial submission due: 1 May 2023
Scholarship application due: 10 June 2023
Registration opens: 1 June 2023
Hackathon registration opens: 22 July 2023
Event Dates: 20-22 September 2023

This year in Trondheim, Norway will be the 10th edition! Please follow the conference website for updates throughout the year and details for participants.

 

Blog Series

Telling our stories by Manjola Zeneli

Each year we meet incredible women at womENcourage™ celebrations. We ask womENcourage participants to tell their stories in blog posts. We continue 2023 with Manjola Zeneli, who studied a Bachelor and Master in Telecommunication Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Tirana and is now an IT specialist at Tetra Solutions.

“My desire for electrical engineering has been instilled by my father since I was a child. He always explained to me the elements of electronics like resistors and how their value was calculated from the colours of the lines it had, transistors etc. At that time the only thing that mattered to me was the joy that sourced from this ‘game’[…] This year I experienced the second chance of attending the ACM Women Encourage conference and everything was fascinating, the loving steering and organising committee, the inspiring workshops especially the one of AI Ethics, a vivid and dynamic one like the lecture, the best examples of scientific posters and last but not least, the amazing and warm Cypriot hospitality.”

Read the entire article on our blog.

 

womENcourage past chair – organising the event online

We are acknowledging the milestone of 10 years of womENcourage with a series of blogs from past chairs who organised this event successfully so far. This month we have Olga Maximová, who was co-chair of womENcourage 2021.

“The conference was very successful, and I daresay on all fronts. We secured finances for running it, volunteers to help, experts to contribute, speakers to share inspirational stories, and the community to get excited. I learnt many things, met new people in a community I never thought I would be a part of, and delivered a word class conference. It required some capacities, the work of volunteers and time dedication – I will not lie. And apart from getting a great online platform in case the conference would be hybrid – online, my number one advice to all teams wanting to organise such an event: ensure you set expectations with the team on how much time they have and can dedicate to the organisation, including prime time and slow time. It takes about a year of planning and working, team syncing, and some hard decisions. You can succeed once you are sure the team commits to it wholeheartedly.”

Read the entire blog here.

 

ACM-W Europe Social Media Highlights

Not on social media? Not a problem. In April 2023, our most popular post on Facebook were:

  1. The blog from womENcourage past chair Andreina Francisco.
  2. The post about Mira Murati, CTO of OpenAI and an inspiring woman in computing.
  3. The announcement of the Keynote Speaker at womENcourage Alexander Serebrenik.

 

On Twitter, the top tweet was the post about the March newsletter, and the top media tweet was the blog from womENcourage past chair Andreina Francisco.

 

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

 

Announcements and News

Open Academic Positions

Open faculty position at KU Leuven, Belgium: junior professor in Synergistic Processing of Multisensory Data for Audio-Visual Understanding

KU Leuven’s Faculty of Engineering Science has an open position for a junior professor (tenure track) in the area of audiovisual understanding. The successful candidate will conduct research on synergetic processing of multisensory data for audio-visual understanding, teach courses in the Master of Engineering Science and supervise students in the Master and PhD programs. The candidate will be embedded in the PSI research division of the Department of Electrical Engineering. 

KU Leuven is committed to creating a diverse environment. It explicitly encourages candidates from groups that are currently underrepresented at the university to submit their applications.

More information is available here.

The deadline for applications is September 29, 2023.

 

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.

Call for ACM Senior Member Nominations
The Senior Member advanced grade of membership recognizes ACM members with at least 10 years of professional experience and 5 years of continuous ACM Professional membership. Nominations are accepted on a quarterly basis. The deadline for nominations is March 3, 2023.
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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