Inspiration? Agness Lungu found it where she expected it and where she didn’t.
Discovering a calling rather than job? That could make all the difference for Sarah Braunstein.
Welcome to the aftermath of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, and a Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering opportunity like no other.
“There were so many passionate women,” says Lungu, an intelligent systems engineer junior, about the four-day, late-September event in Orlando, Fla. “Women doing great stuff. Women wanting to change the world -- some in big ways, some in small ways.”
For a moment, Agness is no longer in a conference room at the Luddy School’s Center for Artificial Intelligence. She morphs back a week earlier to a charging-station room at Orlando’s Orange County Convention Center. Fatigue from multiple Grace Hopper sessions attended by thousands of women sends her for a break – “Nothing prepared me for how fast it was moving and how tired I was getting” – that becomes a revelation. She meets women of color who have achieved positions of prominence and power, and who showcase what the Grace Hopper Celebration really means, and what can happen if you dream it, believe it.
“I wasn’t expecting anything like it,” Lungu says. “We had a great conversation. It had such an impact on me, I cried. Just to see women who made it so far.”
The Grace Hopper Celebration, founded in 1994, is an annual event named after the former U.S. Navy rear admiral (serving from 1943-86), computer scientist pioneer and Presidential Medal of Freedom award winner. It’s the world’s largest gathering of women in computing and offers sessions such as artificial intelligence, data science, human computer interaction and computer system engineering. This year’s theme was Next is Now.
Braunstein arrived feeling “a very large amount of imposter syndrome.” She wasn’t sure her library science background fit among “thousands of brilliant software engineering students.” The second-year graduate student had no specific idea what she wanted to do in the workforce.
Grace Hopper’s one-on-one sessions provided clarity and an unexpected career option – project management. It fit her skillset of creativity, strategy, coordination, and mindfulness.
Those are all traits I have. This was not about finding jobs, but a calling. I look forward to seeing how the next few years pan out.”
Then there’s Tori Sykes, a senior in informatics. She connected with “amazing women” detailing experiences that included ethics in technology.
“It was unlike anything I had experienced before,” she says. “I love tech ethics – is this ethical, how does it impact others, where is technology going from an ethical standpoint? It’s already shaped my understanding.”
Beyond that, Sykes adds, “One of the biggest things I wasn’t expecting, was the strong connection I made with the other women, especially the ones from Luddy.”
This is Grace Hopper’s real power; it’s why Lamara Warren, Luddy assistant dean for diversity and inclusion, invests so much to make it happen. Seventeen Luddy School students made the trip, the first after a two-year, pandemic-forced break.
“It’s important for women to see a path in technology through other women and be surrounded by other women so you know you’re not alone,” Warren says. “There are women in tech. You can do this.”
Sometimes feeling alone hits Lungu hard. She’s thousands of miles from her Zambia home, living in a different culture, speaking a different language, battling insecurities that sometimes rock her, but never break her.
“It’s hard being a woman of color in tech,” she says. “You hear about women doing so much, but to see it, to be with those women in a space where you don’t feel like a minority, there’s something powerful about that.”
The power of networking made a huge impression on Julia Rather, a senior in computer science. Learning new tech skills ranging from user design to TikTok creation to workplace communication were great, she says, but the real benefit came by creating, a new network that would not have been possible without Grace Hopper.
“It was easy to create connections. I spoke with so many women of all ages and backgrounds, and I found something in common with all of them.”
Networking also was big for Chasity Hyde, a senior in informatics. She says the many connections she made and sessions she attended will better prepare her to enter the workforce. She was impressed by the large number of major-company recruiters “eager to learn about every individual.”
“It was such an inspiring and uplifting event.”
Warren requires participants to create programs that shares their experiences with students from every Luddy School department.
“It’s up to them to plan what that looks like, something that brings Grace Hopper back here to foster a sense of celebrating women,” Warren says.
For Lungu, that means emphasizing the importance of networking and relationships. She talks about using her “superpower,” which she says is her drive and adaptability, as she focuses on a career in engineering mixed with artificial intelligence.
“Wherever the opportunity is going to be,” she says, “I like to explore.”
In the end, Warren says, the Grace Hopper Celebration can be a catalyst for those who attended, and those who didn’t.
“There are challenges, but they’re not insurmountable,” she says. “I hope the women who went provide that enthusiasm and empowerment to the students here, so it spreads like wildfire in our school.”