How to make the best of GHC.

I just came back from Orlando, Florida, USA as I was there attending GHC 2019. For those who aren’t familiar with it, GHC is the abbreviation, of Grace Hopper Conference, the largest gathering of women in Computing.

I participated in GHC19 as a student scholar as I was selected to be awarded the scholarship. Although the scholarships and sponsors were matched randomly, I will always be grateful to GoDaddy for sponsoring my scholarship.

The scholarship application material is quite simple. You mainly need to provide your information, write few essays and obtain a recommendation letter from a supervisor. On the other hand, it is very generous as it covered the flight, the accommodation and the registration fees. They also gave us some money to cover travel related-expenses. More information can be found here.

There are several other funded opportunities for students to attend GHC. You can find a few here.

Before applying, I googled the conference, and found that is was awesome in every possible way. I didn’t find one single negative comment about it, which made my desire to go even stronger.

Once accepted, I wanted to take the best advantage of GHC, so I ordered my goals as follows:

1/ Discover GHC and enjoy myself: I have read and heard so much about it that it sounded unrealistic. I must confess that most of my excitement to attend was the result of pure curiosity.

2/Get inspired and feel empowered: I was very keen to meet many successful women and learn about their journeys.

3/Connect and network: I wanted to meet and network with other female students and engineers.

4/Learn something new; technical and not technical : I was curious to attend sessions, both technical and not, and learn new things.

5/Get an internship offer: More than securing an internship offer, I really wanted a chance to experience a real interview with big and international companies.

6/Get free swag: I found out that many companies at GHC would give a lot of free swag! Swag is always nice to have!

7/Visit Orlando: As it was my first time to Florida, I was keen to wander around in Orlando!

I think it is always important to have a pre-prepared list of objectives, because it helps you stay focused and achieve them.

In order to accomplish these goals; I have done the following:

1/ Discover GHC and enjoy myself : I just packed my positive energy and my excitement with me. ;) I also made sure that when planning my sessions, I registered for technical and non technical sessions, workshops, mentoring circles…, I also made sure to schedule for the keynotes sessions and leave enough spare time to visit the Career Fair and the Technology Showcase. In other words, I wanted an agenda as diverse as possible.

2/Get inspired and feel empowered: As I found out that the most inspiring times at GHC are usually the keynotes sessions, I made sure to attend them. (The recordings should be available on the website.).

I remember being amazed the first time at entered the opening keynote session. I honestly didn’t expect it to be that huge. The lights, the sound effects, the enormous number of women, the energy in the room,.. all was just amazing! The keynotes clearly exposed AnitaB.org vision; reach 50/50 tech equality by 2025.

During these sessions, several female speakers talked on the stage. MorganDeban, CEO of Blavity, Ana Roca Custro and many others.. They shared their journeys, challenges and successes. Their words and stories touched me remarkably, as it was refreshing to know and hear from several women models representative of the female workforce.

Although they were extremely inspiring, they weren't the only reason of empowerment. The whole celebration and gathering of more than 25000 women, in one place, all interested in technology and sharing the same passion, goals and concerns was literately overwhelming. It was refreshing and empowering to be in a place where you are not outnumbered.

My “aha” moment happened during the closing keynote session, when a woman on the stage shared that she first came to GHC in 2012 as an attendee, and that now she is back in 2019 on the stage. That was my “aha” moment, next time in GHC, I want to be on the stage, recognized as a successful woman.

3/Connect and network: I started networking before GHC mainly by LinkedIn, and especially thanks to the GHC’s Facebook scholars group. I also scheduled to attend the scholars network event, mentoring circles and a researchers lunch in the aim of connecting with many accomplished women. Once there, I took advantage of the waiting time in lines to chat with several attendees and make acquaintances.

During the workshops I attended, I also had the opportunities to meet and talk with other successful women. Most of them were Google engineers, Microsoft engineers, Amazon engineers … They all had paths similar to mine and I could easily identify with them. Meeting them and exchanging with them motivated me and convinced me of my ability to join them and work at a big company one day.

4/Learn something new; technical and not technical : To achieve this goal, I made sure to register for technical and non technical sessions. My favorite non technical session taught me how to confront sexists in a professional way, while my favorite technical one was about applying NLP to classify security bugs. This session was presented by Microsoft engineers and since I had done an internship in the same field, it felt encouraging to see that my work is relevant to the concerns of the biggest tech companies.

Besides, I spared some time to visit the Technology Showcase and learn about the latest technologies. Facebook presented their latest VR/AR technologies while Google showcased their latest products. But my favorite by far was Intel’s Dual Screen Gaming Laptop. It was definitely not what I had in mind for the future of computers!

5/Get an internship offer: This was definitely the main reason behind several attendees coming. I noticed that some even skipped the keynotes sessions to spend more time in the Career Fair, which I think was not the spirit of GHC. GHC is not about just securing an internship or a job offer, it is way more than that.

The Carrier Fair was fulled with companies and recruiters looking for talented students: Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Intel, Coursera, Dropbox, …. all were present. If you google GHC, the majority of tips will be about how to secure a job or an internship offer at GHC; printing resumes, contacting recruiters you are interested in beforehand, preparing for interviews ….

I stopped by several booths that I was most interested in. Chatting with recruiters in order to know the different opportunities they offer was motivating. Although I had printed some resumes, most of the recruiters only scanned my badge or took pictures of my resume. So, by the end of the conference, I had some hard copies left.

6/Get free swag: Before going, I made sure I packed extra bags and that had some free space in my luggage :p . Once there, it was not hard to collect some cool stuff. Practically, every booth in the Career Fair had something to offer.

7/Visit Orlando: Prior to my flight, I planned my nights and noted the places I wanted to visit. Although it didn’t go as planned, I was still able to wonder around the streets of Orlando and get a taste of the city!

Now that I look back at GHC, I can say it made me feel motivated about the role models I have met and inspired about the numerous career opportunities in front of me. I feel more ambitious and more confident in my ability of building a successful technical career. I am also proud of being awarded the scholarship and even more committed to my field. GHC surely provides opportunities for women to grow, learn and develop at different stages of their careers.

To conclude this article, I would encourage any young woman in a tech related field to attend the next GHCs, as it is truly a life changing experience. I have also put a list of available funded opportunities for students to attend GHC here.

If you like this article, don’t forget to clap! Thanks.