I am very pleased to report that Sybase has once again contributed funds to support the Women in Computer Science initiative at the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo. The faculty and staff of WICS, chaired by Associate Professor Nancy Day, encourage and support the study of Computer Science by female undergraduate and graduate students who in aggregate number approximately 12% of Waterloo’s total Computer Science enrollment. In response to the Sybase grant, Nancy wrote:
The Women in Computer Science Committee of the University of Waterloo
is delighted to gratefully acknowledge the contribution of $3500 from
Sybase in Waterloo, Ontario to support our activities to encourage and
support women to follow careers in computer-related fields. These
funds will mainly be used to support female undergraduate and graduate
students to attend the 2011 Grace Hopper Celebration of Computing in
Portland, Oregon. Students return from this conference with
greater confidence to pursue their interest in computer science and
connections to technical women for mentorship and career opportunities.
This week I am attending the annual ACM SIGMOD conference in Athens, Greece and I am encouraged by the number of female faculty and graduate students who are in attendance, mostly from within Europe. Their participation represents a substantially higher proportion than I have seen at any North American conference in some time, and I sincerely hope that trend continues.
Glenn Paulley is a Director of Engineering at Sybase iAnywhere.
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1 Sybase Blog: Glenn Paulley - Id Rather Play Golf // Jul 20, 2011 at 9:07 pm
[...] that so many of the participants are girls, particularly given the University of Waterloo’s current female undergraduate enrollment in Computer [...]