Insight: How we do Grace Hopper
Answer: Each of us does it a little differently!
Six Insight team members (and many Insight alumni) descended upon Orlando at the beginning of October, along with over 25,000 others to celebrate women in computing at the 2019 Grace Hopper Celebration. In this post, I’ll reference the GHC schedule here.
This was my second year attending GHC. Both times, I’ve been surprised by how both energizing and exhausting it can be. My favorite part about the format is that I can be challenged in my own lane, but also branch out and be completely capable of absorbing information and participating. It’s not just how amazing the work is, but how accessible these powerful women/non-binary folks (and some men) make the complex concepts.
I prioritized machine learning, ethics, and ‘out of my comfort zone’ talks. There were two workshops that really stood out to me. During the first, “Breaking the Black Box: Interpreting Machine Learning Models” by Sheryl Zhang, Kanika Sabharwal, and Rupali Saboo, I learned how to explore VGG16 layers to get insight into features detected during early model training. The Colab notebook that was provided was amazing and I shared it with my network when I returned home.
The second talk I really enjoyed, “Edge AI with Raspberry Pi”(given by the Mathworks team with Jaya Shankar, Louvere Walker-Hannon, Penny Anderson), used MATLAB compile C++ code to deploy face detection and age prediction algorithms on a Raspberry Pi. I have no experience in hardware, but I completed the tutorial and now have a strong curiosity for deploying lightweight ML models on inexpensive hardware for security, accessibility, and versatility reasons.
If I am lucky enough to go to the GHC again, I think I will take the same approach, but will pack a few extra granola bars for the stretches of time that I have must-see talks back-to-back. The conference center is HUGE and sometimes leaves you running to catch the next talk.
After sharing these stories with my team, I was surprised by how differently everyone experienced Grace Hopper. I asked them to share their experiences, summarized below.
Quality Networking
Helena Zhang (Program Director, Data Engineering):
This was my first time at GHC. Though I received plenty of advice about what to expect from more experienced Insight GHC-goers, I was still blown away by the sheer quantity and quality of learning, mentorship, and networking at the conference. Being a first-timer, I decided to go to a diverse grab bag of talks. I enjoyed the technical talks like, how to effectively debug Spark instances, and a new blockchain protocol with optimal throughput, a panel on professional sponsorship and how individuals with diverse backgrounds can help each other advance the ladder. There were talks on different career paths such as technical writing, where the speakers announced their salary to demystify the field and encourage conversations. The after-hours events were fantastic as well, and I got to meet and connect with many women working on cool problems.
My favorite part of GHC was hosting the Insight breakfast along with my teammates Kathy and Genevieve. We had in-depth conversations with over twenty women who, despite the early hours, were incredibly engaged and enthusiastic about data science and engineering. Many were finishing their advanced degrees and thinking about next steps. We talked about a wide range of topics, from how Insight operates, to advice on interviewing and career progression. I can’t wait to see how their careers evolve.
Witnessing Women Lead
April Minsky (Head of Strategic Partnerships):
This was my first time at GHC, and I don’t think I quite understood just how massive this conference is going into it! I got around 15,000 steps each day just walking from session to session. It was pretty energizing being surrounded by so many awesome women (and men championing women in tech). As someone who works in tech but isn’t a technical person, there were many sessions that were out of my wheelhouse, but that certainly didn’t leave me without options or opportunities to learn and engage. I went to sessions on imposter syndrome and being your authentic self; I went to a panel on what sponsorship is and how to leverage it, as well as an empowering, and often entertaining, panel called “CR108: #WhatWouldChadDo: Negotiate, Navigate, and Neutralize Situations” (“Chad” being a metaphor for the Mediocre White Man Who Asks For More Than He Deserves). My favorite thing, however, was the PitchHER competition, where 11 female founders got to pitch their startups to a panel of judges and the GHC audience to win real funding for their company. My job at Insight allows me to meet with a lot of really interesting people in the industry who are leading data teams, running companies, and having an impact on the data community; unfortunately, it’s rare that those meetings are with women. Getting to see 11 badass ladies (many who were also women of color) running badass companies, in a single afternoon, was pretty incredible. It was the longest but most enjoyable session that I attended!
Watching a Community Grow
Kathy Copic (VP of Growth):
I’ve been at Insight for almost six years, and my favorite part of the conference was seeing many alumni giving talks, like Yewon Gim (AT&T) talking about Quantum Computing, and Iva Horel (Macy’s) giving a talk titled, “A Survey of Data Science Applications in Retail.” Many others were there recruiting for their teams and succeeding in their roles, including Matt Moocarme (Viacom), Hongsup Shin (Arm), Priya Venkat (Chegg), Jean-leah Njoroge (Dell), Jolene Mork (Macy’s), Jenelle Bray (LinkedIn), Courtney Epstein (ZocDoc), and Vicki Moeller-Chan (Walmart InHome).
Capitalizing on our Differences
Genevieve Smith (VP of Product)
The part of Grace Hopper that felt the most resonant to me was a bit of a metaphor for the whole experience. It was a panel discussion called “Ageless Sisterhoods: Building Strong Intergenerational Relationships in the Workplace.” Led by Kasey Champion, Content Engineering Lead at Karat, it was a conversation between four women, each representing a different generation: Gen Zs, Millennials, Gen Xers, and Baby Boomers. These women shared some pretty raw experiences when they were underestimated or undermined because of their age, as well as honest reflections on times when they were the ones doing the underestimating. Wandering around the convention center, dazed by the crowds, bewildered by the schedule, I found it easy to fall into thoughts like “Why are there so many undergrads skipping the keynote to line up for the career fair?”, or “Why is the leadership summit for senior women so difficult to get into?” or “Where’s my Google/Netflix/Twitter/fill-in-the-blank party invite?!”
Listening to Portia Smith and Catherine Naesmith reflect on their experiences (read: what they had to put up with) as the first women on many of the teams they joined and built at iconic tech companies like IBM, Xerox, Netflix, and Facebook, and what Kim Nguyen and Elaine Solomon Kassa’s generations aren’t going to stand for, I was reminded that the most effective thing I could do at Grace Hopper was seek out and learn from as many of the women around me as possible, whether I met them at an invitation-only luncheon or sidled up next to them to share access to an electrical outlet to charge my phone. In return, I offered what advice or guidance I could, when it was asked of me. Besides, there’s plenty we can all agree on regardless of age, like the fact that crowds of dudes angling for face time with recruiters at GHC is totally bogus.
A Professional Development Goldmine
Lacey Cope (Coaching and Development Lead)
GHC first came on my radar a few years ago, while I worked at William & Mary. Our team at Insight encouraged as many people as possible to consider submitting a conference talk. While I was definitely plagued with imposter syndrome during the writing of the application and proposal, I was motivated by my team in believing I was capable of more than I was giving myself credit for. So, I took a leap of faith, and submitted a workshop with my co-facilitator, Allison Krawiec-Thayer titled, “Balancing the Scales: Shifting Interviews from Interrogation to Conversation.” In May, we learned that we were one of the 436 proposals accepted from over 3,000 submissions, which was exhilarating, terrifying, and humbling! The line-up of topics and speakers at GHC is an encyclopedia of inspiration and motivation, and the nearly equal investment in professional skills development and technical skills development is a testament to the values and intended impact of the conference.
Apart from my own experience speaking, some of my favorite speakers were: Amy Kalokerinos, who spoke about women leaders being perceived as aggressive or overly emotional during “CR128: Been Called Emotional or Aggressive? Take it as a Compliment!”; Dr. Vivienne Ming, whose keynote on courage was eye opening and critically relevant (as Anita B strives to achieve 50/50 intersectional gender parity in tech); and Keela Robison, the VP of Product Innovation at Netflix, who articulated clear, actionable takeaways for leading decisions that stick in her talk, “CR120: Leading Decisions that Stick.”
Each of these speakers served as motivation to provide as much value as possible to the 270 attendees that came to Allison and my talk. After our workshop, we were extremely grateful to hear from job-seekers, recruiters, and hiring managers alike that our talk successfully shifted their mindsets and they were committed to approaching every interview as an opportunity to connect, rather than an interrogation. Reflecting on the role that many women have played in my growth as a professional, I have confidence that 50/50 by 2025 is truly attainable.
There’s no right way to do the GHC, but it’s clear that different attendees can have wildly different, yet equally impactful experiences.
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