Engineering Students Practice Collaboration, Equity at Grace Hopper Celebration
Students from Cal Poly’s Computer Science and Software Engineering Department pose at the 2023 Grace Hopper Celebration.
With the help of a generous donation, computer science and software engineering Assistant Professor Sumona Mukhopadhyay and 19 Cal Poly students attended the 2023 Grace Hopper Celebration.
The conference is widely regarded as the world’s largest gathering of women and nonbinary technologists and aims to connect them with the primary goal of creating a sense of belongingness and promoting diversity, inclusivity and equality in the computing community.
The four-day event took place in Orlando, Florida, where more than 30,000 people from 81 countries gathered.
“We are grateful to our donor and the Computer Science and Software Engineering Department for sponsoring the trip to the Grace Hopper Celebration,” Mukhopadhyay said. “By attending this conference in person, I had the great opportunity to listen to several keynote speakers who spoke passionately on these topics in their support for improving the state of gender equity and more inclusivity in the tech community.”
This year’s conference theme was “The Way Forward,” which aligns with the event’s mission of advocating for human rights.
Computer science and software engineering Assistant Professor Sumona Mukhopadhyay with Beena Ammanath, College of Engineering Deans Advisory Council member and author of “Trustworthy AI” and Trustworthy AI & Technology
Trust Ethics lead at Deloitte.
“The theme implies that if we can harness the collective force of women in tech, then we can have a strong impact to not only change our future, but to also create an opportunity to improve the state of gender equity and inclusivity,” Mukhopadhyay said.
Computer science graduate student Sindhu Srivats attended the event with her peers from Cal Poly.
“The 2023 Grace Hopper Celebration conference was an incredible opportunity to connect with and form a larger community of powerful women and nonbinary people in computing,” she said. “Being surrounded by so many intelligent people who all share a passion for computing was an extremely enriching experience.”
Thanks to the donation, Cal Poly student attendees made professional strides while at the conference.
“Based on the feedback from our students, almost everybody agreed unanimously that the exposure they got at the Grace Hopper Celebration conference has clearly made a big impact and will certainly help them in their careers,” Mukhopadhyay shared. “Some students got successful internship offers at the on-site career fair. The generous donation has not only helped in supporting travel, but has also created a memorable, positive impact on the attendees.”
The 2024 conference will be held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Mukhopadhyay hopes she and her students will be able to attend and share what they will learn with others in the community and in the computing field.
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Paying it forward
With help from a generous donation by a member of the Dean’s Club for Innovation, students were able to attend the 2023 Grace Hopper Celebration in Orlando, Florida. The funding covered admission, lodging and travel expenses for all 19 students.
By Taylor Villanueva
