GHC18, PWiC and More by Falah Shazib
At the University of Waterloo, school terms alternate with internships. Having just finished a term as a game developer at Electronic Arts, I’m excited to start my third year of Computer Science. I chose Computer Science because I wanted to combine my love for mathematics and logical solutions with my passion for non-profit work. With computer science, I hope to develop concrete solutions to fix problems in our society. My extracurriculars reflect my goals; I’m very involved with my university’s women in computer science committee and am also working on cultivating a virtual reality community at the University. I have also organized hackathons for social equity, and am part of an organization that develops technical solutions for local nonprofits. I hope to start a social enterprise eventually, but there is time until I graduate and my primary goal has always been to learn and improve myself as much as possible until then.
Attending GHC for my second time, I was hoping to attend non-profit and virtual reality talks and workshops and connect with women with similar goals. At the end of the exhausting yet incredibly exciting three days, I had achieved that and more. I had attended talks about futuristic virtual reality concepts, sat through a hilarious web VR app workshop, talked with women on the boards of revolutionary non-profits, met countless amazing undergrad women and much more. Even the 20 minute long presentations packed so much information that I had enough to think about for hours after. While these talks were amazing, they are pretty standard fare for a conference like GHC. When you gather some of the brightest minds in computing, you will always have a great discussion and amazing speakers (my favorite was Jessica Matthews, who you can watch on the welcome keynote recording). However, my absolute favorite part of GHC was meeting the women of Pakistani Women In Computing (PWIC). While this may seem like a blatant advertisement, given that I am writing this for a medium article for them, I assure you that it isn’t. Meeting Pakistani Women in Computing is rare at my University. I look for them in all my organizations, hoping to meet someone who has experienced what I have. Studying so far away from home, I often feel removed from my culture and community. After all, I want to create lasting change in my community. How can I do that if my link to it seems to be disappearing so quickly? Meeting these women was incredibly heartwarming.
One night, we simply sat in Airbnbs and traded stories. I felt validated and supported and inspired. I’ll treasure that experience far more than any other at GHC. GHC, like any other conference, is what you make of it. I left with the increased knowledge of my interests and a network of amazing people. Until next year’s GHC, I look forward to sharing my knowledge with the fellow students through my organizations and working with PWIC in any way possible. We have a whole year left and I’m excited to see where it will lead me.
About the Author
Falah Shazib is a 3rd-year Computer Science student from the University of Waterloo in Canada and at her school, she is actively involved with virtual reality and nonprofit community-related programs. In her spare time, she likes to share her thoughts through her writings.
