MICWIC 2011

Here goes Amber's report on MICWIC. She didn't say anything about her and Charnique running the CS unplugged games - they did an awesome job, too!

A few of the ACM-W members attended MICWIC this year and it was awesome. The conference started out with registration in which we received a nice little package compliments of the sponsors of the conference. Then each of the poster board contestants set up for the judging and allowed for everyone to view and converse with them about their projects. After that we heard remarks from the conference chair, Fatma Mili, about what to expect and what she hopes we will get out of the conference. Then everyone mingled at dinner and we were introduced to the keynote speaker, Jennifer Marsman from Microsoft, who talked to us about the different reasons why technology rocks. After that everyone had a chance to go off to different birds of a feather discussion groups that introduced different issues that women encounter in the computer science field.

To finish off the first night there was a short CS unplugged game session back at the hotel which allowed for the students, professors, committee members, and company representatives to mingle in an informal setting. We played three different rounds of the binary game. Each player was given four stacks of five bit cards. The first round allowed for the players to see the five bit cards for each stack. Numbers were called aloud and they had to flip the card over to match the numbers. Then second round, they had to flip that cards over and guess how to make the numbers that were called out aloud. The third round they were given five green and five yellow cards that represented on and off bits respectively. When they number was called out they had to remember how to turn off certain bits to make the number. We played a couple of times for each round to allow for others to win and get used to the game. At the end of the night everyone had a great time and was given it buttons for participating.

The next day we had a plenary session about computing in our future given by the session chair, Linda Ott from MTU. Then we broke out into paper and panel session that allowed for people who couldn’t make it the first day to still enjoy some of the intriguing discussions. There was also a career fair that allowed for student and prospective graduate students to talk to companies and school about their future goals. In the midst of the discussions and the career fair we took a group photo to have a reminder of the great minds of our present and future WOMEN computer science majors. Then remarks were made and we all parted back to our homes. Overall the MICWIC 2011 conference was a great learning experience and a great way to learn about the different topics that we can incorporate in to our studies and research. If you missed MICWIC you should try to go to Grace Hopper convention that is November this year in Portland, Oregon.