ACM-W Europe September 2023 Newsletter

 

In this issue:

 

womENcourage™ – Celebration of Women in Computing

10th Anniversary in Trondheim, Norway on 20-22 September 2023

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

The conference was attended by more than 250 participants of which 67 received participation scholarships. The three days of the event were packed with activities: 15 workshops, poster session with 50 posters, career fair with 11 boots, the hackathon with more than 50 participants and 11 mentors, great talks and keynote speakers.

Thank you to all the participants and organisers for making the event a great anniversary one!

We hope to see you soon at the next womENcourage, which will take place in Madrid at Escuela Politécnica Superior Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 26-28 June 2024.

 

Call for proposals to organise womENcourage 2025

We are now looking for proposals to host womENcourage 2025.

The proposal process includes two phases (all the templates you will need are provided on our website):

  1. Expressions of Interest (EoI) to be submitted no later than 16 November 2023, 23:59 AoE. 
    • Each EoI will be reviewed by the womENcourage Steering Committee and followed up by a conference call to discuss the proposal. Submitting an EoI does not constitute a firm commitment to hosting. It is a first step towards a conversation with ACM-W Europe which will help you navigate the process of applying to be a host venue, by thinking early about what you need to have in place to fulfil the requirements to host the event. 
    • Notification of successful EoI proposal by 28 November 2022.
  2. Full Hosting Proposals by 25 January 2024, 23:59 AoE.
    • The teams that are shortlisted for the second phase will be provided with a budget template and advice on submitting the full proposal.
    • Notification of the final decision by 1 March 2024.

Check here for more details.

 

Lessons learned from 40+ years of the Internet

Panel Discussion taking place online Wednesday the 4th of October 2023.

Time: 5 pm CET / 11 AM EDT / 8 am PDT

Panellists:

  • Dave Oran, MIT
  • Jörg Ott, TU München
  • Craig Partridge, Colorado State University
  • Henning Schulzrinne Columbia University
  • John Wroclawski, ISI

Click here for more details on how to register.

 

Our First Student Chapter Buddies!

ACM-W has started a new campaign and is encouraging all ACM-W chapters to partner with other ACM-W chapters from the same/different state, country, or region to become a Buddy. The partnerships can be created to achieve some common goal, be it Academic, Social, Professional, or Service. The ACM-W Buddy System aims to inspire collaborations between the ACM-W chapters across the world, overcoming the barrier of distance and time! 

This month we would like to share with you our student chapter buddies. ATU ACM-W Student Chapter which is at Atlantic Technological University, Ireland, and ACM Bilkent, which is at Bilkent University, Turkey became our first student chapter buddies!

Our first students’ buddies will collaborate on ACM Celebration of Women in Computing: Bean Feasa (wise woman), which will be co-located with the Cyber Research Conference Ireland (Cyber-RCI), which will provide an opportunity to meet with researchers and industry alike. The bean feasa can choose a path in computing, engineering and related fields with the support of the university. This event will include guest speakers and a panel on career pathways. The 1st celebration occurred in 2017 with  Dr Toni Collis as our keynote speaking about high performance computing. In 2018 we were delighted to have a number of workshops from industry with representatives from Microsoft, Pramerica and Klarna. As ACM-W Europe, we are proud to sponsor two members from ACM-W Bilkent to join the ACM Celebration of Women in Computing: Bean Feasa event physically. We hope to see more collaboration soon!

More details here.

Blog Series

The Beginnings – Dreams Come True

Having the 10th womENcourage anniversary this year we are acknowledging this milestone with a series of blogs from past chairs who organised this event successfully so far. 

Let’s hear from Reyyan Ayfer who is the founder member of ACM-W Europe and womENcourage celebration.

“Believe me, dreams come true, especially when you have the courage, energy, and will to make dreams come true and work with your team members who believe in your dream. […]

My first goal was to bring European women in computing together to build a community to raise awareness. We started as a small team […] We decided that our initial target group would be the young women who are already in the field. Our main goal was to bring them together to inspire, motivate, and encourage them to stay in the field by organising a European Celebration of Women in Computing. Our long-term goal was to make this celebration the premier Women in Computing Celebration in Europe.

[…]

I am thankful to the wonderful organisers of the subsequent womENcourage events and the steering committee of ACM-WE. Their enthusiasm and hard work made it all possible. […] Seeing the attendees of the first womENcourage taking roles in the leadership positions of ACM-W and ACM-W Europe is very promising for the future. They are role models for future generations […].”

Read the entire article on our blog.

 

ACM-W Europe Social Media Highlights

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

  1. The post about the Personal Computer (PC) introduction by IBM #ThisDayInHistory.
  2. The blog from womENcourage participant Eivind Dalholt.
  3. The announcement of application for global ACM-W communication co-chair.

 

On Twitter, the top tweet was the  the post about the newsletter, and the top media tweet was the blog from womENcourage participant Eivind Dalholt.

 

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

 

Announcements and News

Open Academic 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.

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 next deadline for nominations is September 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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