Top Ten Photos from #GHC17
Of course not really top 10. There’s such a vast collection of great photos out there from some of the 18,000 participants who attended the annual Grace Hopper Conference of 2017. These are mine. Those that, at the very least, had me taking the photo while my hands were steady. Well, enough of this chitchat. Let’s get to it!
“ The Grace Hopper Celebration is the world’s largest gathering of women technologists. It is produced by AnitaB.org and presented in partnership with ACM (Association for Computing Machinery).
10. Did someone say swag?
What do you expect when the world’s largest tech companies and great universities make themselves present at a career fair? It was certainly a swag-filled event. The swag was strong with this one. So strong it made made my luggage overweight. But I’m not complaining 🤓
9. Walt Disney World Y’all!
I have seen fireworks before, but not like the ones that awed me at Walt Disney World. I learnt, that night, how powerful music is in creating awesome. Indeed, there was so much awesome to behold. The fireworks lit up the skies to the rhythm of the fanfare classical music that played. It was quite an enlightening performance I must say.
8. Women Tech Makers (WTM) Afterhours Party
This event was hosted by Google. There were so many activities to take part in, that I found out about most of them after the party. I got to see some of the technologies on display, such as the recently released Pixel 2 phone and Google Allo. They even had the Waymo self-driving car on display!
7. Women of Color Hop Up Party (Google — YouTube)
This event was intended to create a space for women of color at GHC to connect with one another. I joined some random ladies on the dance floor, and had so much fun talking, dancing and taking photos. Then I later discovered that they were in fact Googlers 😱. I probably wouldn’t have done that if I knew (yeah, talk about imposter syndrome). That was a great lesson for me; never to disqualify yourself, or deny yourself a chance just because you feel that you don’t fit in.
6. Women Techmakers Scholars Dinner
This was another event by Google for the receivers of the Women Techmakers Scholarship (formerly known as the Anita Borg Scholarship). These people, they spoiled us… with delicious meals and desserts.
5. Blend Happy Hour — Final Party
This party was the icing on the cake. There was good music, fun activities to take part in (like pool and silent disco), plenty food, and such great people to be around. Some extremely lucky attendees got to go home with Google Homes. So jealous.
4. The Food!
Well, I’ll just let the photo speak for itself here.
3.Yay, Career Fair!
Was trying to avoid the exclamation mark on the title for this one, but the fair was super exciting. And it went on for three days! So many companies and universities were in attendance. The interactions I had with the representatives of some of those companies were quite insightful.
2. Beautiful Orlando
Orlando was a wonderful place to be. Different, but wonderful. Granted, I froze indoors (air conditioning), and received the full furor of the sun when I stepped out, but it was overall a great and beautiful place to be.
1. “You’ve Got A Friend In Me”
I met Angela at the airport. It seemed that we were getting off and into to the same flights, and she figured we must be going to the same place. It was nice having someone from Kenya to talk to, and get lost in the airports with. I remember losing my conference badge, and being frantic with worry. She helped me pull myself together and I eventually got a new one. She made life at the conference so much easier than it would have been.
That’s all folks! Tope ten photos from the GHC. It was such an honor to have been selected by the Google Women Techmakers team as a travel grant recipient to attend the conference. Would love to check out photos, or link to blogs from other participants as well.
I encourage any lady in the STEM fields to attend next year. There are usually quite a number of scholarships available each year, and you only have to look for them. I’ll be sharing a list of some of the available scholarships on this blog sometime next year.
Extras 😁
After the conference, I travelled to New York, courtesy of Andela. New York was quite different from Orlando, with so many tall buildings and busy streets. The Andelans at the New York office couldn’t have been more accommodative. Here are some random photos:
