Living One Dream at A Time!
Part 5 of “Everything you need to know about GHC” series
The whole Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing experience summarized!
A few days before the announcement of the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference Scholarship results, I felt dejected and ended up calling up my Amma.
“There is no way on Earth, I’m gonna win this scholarship. I don’t think I’m worthy of it”, I told her, sadly.
“Never say that! Don’t lose hope, just yet. Good things are going to happen soon.”
God must have exclaimed, “So be it”, for the next day as I was trying hard to study Principles of Management for my s6 final exams, I received a mail detailing how I had won the esteemed GHC scholarship. Well, you can not imagine how hard it must have been for me to finish studying for that particular exam once I read the mail!
To know more about how by chance I stumbled across the GHC scholarship, read the blog post posted below:
And then the after all the calling and the mailing and dealing with all the college procedures ( I was to leave for 14 days!), I opened my inbox one fine day to read this mail.
Dr Raghavan was one of my father’s classmates and he was one of the speakers whom I had contacted for the TEDxMEC 2017 event. His lovely mail had a pretty powerful message in it and yes, that was the exact moment when I finally understood that I “belong” too.
I also got on a call with Arya Murali and SKG and they congratulated me for my achievement. I had a few queries regarding the visa process, which they were kind enough to answer and help me out with.
There was so much to do — I was yet to apply for the visa, pack, learn the cracking the coding interview book and so on. But time stops for no man and just like that, the days flew by and the day was finally here.
I flew down to Houston ( the location where the conference was being held ) a few days in advance because it was my first ever trip to the US and I wanted to get over the jetlag :P
There is so much I want to cover, but I fear it’s going to turn into a pretty long post. So here is a separate post about Houston and the fun I had there. And that is how my own custom-made hashtag was born #living_one_dream_at_a_time
GHC taught me a lot, not just about the tech world, but it helped me understand myself. How? Read on to find out.
I learnt who I am and what I want. And for that, I’ll always be grateful. Without much adieu, here is a completely honest account of my experiences at GHC.
Day#1
All the GHC scholars were staying at the Hilton and I was sharing my room with a fellow scholar Shervone Mayes from Texas State University. Shervone was an absolute sweetheart and she helped me find my way around Houston. We shared the shuttle ride to the conference and I felt so much at ease. Honestly, I was delighted she was my roommate. We spoke about how our lives are different and similar in certain aspects. She talked about her courses, projects. We shared our aims and ambitions well past 10 over french fries, burgers and chocolate muffins at our comfy hotel room.
The opening keynote session was absolutely incredible. There is nothing quite like it. The session was held at the Toyota Centre as it could accommodate about 18,000 people! This was my first ever keynote session but I truly was in awe by the end of it.
Brenda Darden Wilkerson, President and CEO of AnitaB.org kicked off the opening keynote session with her wise words. She also read a letter from President Barack Obama addressed to all GHC 18 attendees, urging them to “keep aiming high, dreaming big, and working hard.”
Padmashree Warrior, CEO & Chief Development Officer of NIO, talked about Women in Tech and the rising influence of autonomous vehicles. She had a lot of advice to offer. “Keep your eyes on the stars and feet on the ground” is the best one among them that really struck a chord with me. I learnt that humility, fierceness and hard work can do wonders and Padmashree’s words were a testimonial to that.
And oh yeah, I met real-life Shuri at the conference. Jessica O. Matthews, Founder & CEO of Uncharted Power, spoke about how she got into the tech industry by accident. After creating an energy-generating soccer ball for a school science project, she was encouraged to start her own business. “Just because it’s not your plan doesn’t mean it’s not your destiny.”
Priscilla Chan spoke about “Reimagining Philanthropy through technology”.She stressed on how you need to “Bring your experiences, your heart, and your work to the table — every day.”
Next up, we headed on over to the Career Fair!
#protip: When you are travelling from far off countries, you are going to be jetlagged as hell. It’s better to go a few days early. I took about a week to get used to the timings.
I met Pooja Malpani, one of our esteemed alumnae from MEC( Govt. Model Engineering College). She was then heading the HBO booth being the Senior Engineering Manager at HBO and now she works as the Head of Consumer and Web, Media and Marketing Engineering at Bloomberg. She helped me correct errors on my resume and asked about the college. Having met her, I felt so proud to call myself as “MEC”ian!
#reality check
You can’t just over prepare. The career fair is huge. Well, it has to be considering how it has to accommodate 450+ organisations including academic and corporate sponsors. The huge booths filled with goodies and swarming with people can be a little too much for people like me who haven’t been to a tech conference before.
At one moment in time, I just ran away to one of the free corners for I could feel tears forming in my eyes. It was all too overwhelming for me. And that’s when I realised it’s okay to feel afraid and scared. This is a little glimpse of the actual world out there. After I calmed myself, I decided to sit for a few of the sessions happening later that day.
#protip: Get an international sim card to connect with your loved ones in time of distress. Trust me just talking to them can do wonder.
Day#2
I was more prepared today. So I went to the Career Fair, early in the morning. I dropped by quite a few booths. I had finally perfected my elevator pitch. The interviewers were obviously tired after day 1, but they were here for a purpose — to meet and talk to other women technologists like themselves.
#protip: Get 5–10 copies of your resume. It’s all digital now. I took quite a few and ended up carrying them back. You don’t need all the extra load.
I had wonderful conversations while standing in line, waiting for my turn. I spoke to people interning and working at my dream companies.
I talked about the latest Apple products with a firmware engineer at Apple, conversed with a Google UX designer, laughed over the cute Mickey Mouse totte bag with a Walt Disney employee, answered a trick question at the Cisco booth, gained knowledge about the education system in the US talking to an university faculty member and so on. All in one day’s time. Such is the huughness of the conference. It’s truly a slice of the tech world served on a plate.
I then had preliminary “ getting to know you” interviews with American Express, Google and eBay. The experience was awesome and I learnt a lot about each of these companies and the roles that they offered. But the only disadvantage that I had turned out to be the biggest — not having the visa authorization to work in the US(being an international scholar) is a pivotal factor in determining your success at these interviews.
But I kept on meeting people, trying to visit and cover as many booths as I could. I collected cool goodies on the way too. More about the swag, coming up in the end.
The Women Tech Makers Reception
So the Google Women Tech Makers group had a pretty wonderful party planned. It was pretty private and you could get an invite only if you received a secret code. Once you received the code, you had to collect your bands from a special counter at the conference. I was falling in love with the suspense element already.
I loved every second of the party. We played games, took pics at the VR booth, ate sushi and, danced like crazy. Okay, I’m gonna let the pics do the talking.
Day #3
Honestly, when I woke up to get ready, I was exhausted physically and mentally. So much had been happening these past couples of days that it was too much for my mind to comprehend.
I woke up and met some of the other scholars on the shuttle. I met Sheeraja, another friend of mine, who was also a scholar ( she was currently doing her masters from Syracuse University)and we decided to have breakfast from the Google on the Greens venue. On our way there, Groupon had a food truck parked right next to the convention centre and we got some free scones(yippee). At the Google tent, we saw a live demo of the Google Jam board, if you haven’t checked it out, please do, it’s pretty cool. There were other quizzes and interactive demos happening but we had to head over to the Convention Centre as we were getting late.
And oh, it was Google’s 20th birthday! They had a huge cake to celebrate.
I walked into a few of the speaker sessions to get a gist of the panel tracks. Although I found most of them to be very helpful, a few tracks were too advanced for me.
I met Pooja Malpani one last time before the career fair came to a close after which I hurried over to the Google stall to collect extra pins for some of my close friends.
I visited the AnitaB.Org stall and donated 25$ dollars out of my scholarship fund to receive my AnitaB.org T-shirt. The money didn't matter, but the sentiment behind the gesture had a lot of meaning to it.
AnitaB.org is responsible for this achievement of mine. This conference helped me in so many ways that I have lost count. And I am not kidding when I say that GHC has been one of the best experiences of my life so far.
And then this happened…
As I was waiting in life at the Twitter booth, Jack Dorsey (CEO of Twitter and Square, if you didn't know) walked over to talk to us. My brain kinda froze for a second and I was super nervous when I spoke to him. When I told him I’m from India, he told me how he was planning on visiting and asked me if I knew of any meditation centres in Kerala. I honestly don’t even remember, what I uttered in reply. I was just so excited. Next time, I’ll definitely be more prepared.
The Closing Note
Justine Cassell Associate Dean of Technology Strategy and Impact at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science and the Director Emerita of the Human-Computer Interaction Institute was the star of the closing note according to me. Nora Denzel was amazing as the host and I loved every bit of energy, passion and sass she brought to the table!
The Evening Celebration
One of the main highlights of the Grace Hopper Celebration is the iconic Friday evening celebration where all the 20,000 women technologists come together on the dance floor to let their hair down and enjoy after all the serious technical knowledge seeking and career fair interviewing. It’s amazing for the energy is the room was just spectacular. This year, Google was one of the main sponsors for it is at the evening party did we receive the much awaited Google GHC T-shirt. Imprinted with the graphical images of Grace Hopper, Ada Lovelace and Anita B.org, this shirt will always have a special place in my heart for all the memories that it holds.
Swag collection
When I was reading up on other blogs online to learn more about the conference, I found quite a few people who kept stressing on the fact that I should bring in extra bags to store all the swag if they are attending the conference. They were not lying.
I literally had to purchase a FedEx box to pack all the goodies so that I could take it back home. I guess this picture says it all.
Friends Around The Globe.
What I love most about the GHC experience is the opportunity to meet people from all over the world. I can now literally say I have friends around the globe. How exciting is that!?
Since most of our flights were scheduled to be in the evening, a few of us decided to visit the NASA space centre in Houston. We met at the lobby and Bianca ( the lovely lady with the NASA sticker) was our group leader. We were awestruck as we explored the space centre and laid our eyes on the various equipment, spaceship models on display. We eat lunch together and shared the cab together. It was fun, I spoke to Kamo who is a senior from South Africa on our ride to the space centre. Bianca was a joy to behold and even though our meeting was brief, I did learn one important fact about her – she is one crazy NASA fan!
Update:
Do Thanh Lam is now off to be a technical Speaker at the Vietnam Web Summit 2018. Kudos girl!
Biana, the space girl is counting her steps to being on the next space shuttle! Having finally finished her final exams, she is looking forward to her winter break.
Shreya(one with the cool specs)just graduated from the University of Arizona with her Masters in Management Information System.
Kamo(one sitting right next to me) is now the newly elected vice president of the Woman in Computer Science Society at her college in South Africa.
Mackenzie (one in the peach jacket)is currently interning at CERN. How cool is that!?
I Can Predict the Future
I am kidding! ( Maybe not)
But I know for sure, that after reading my post you will be definitely applying for the GHC scholarship and asking your friends to apply too! There is no doubt about it.
And I want to do my bit:
Here is a detailed approach with regards to the application and key points to note while filling it out.
Please feel free to ping me if you have any doubts or queries, I’d love to help you out.
GHC 2019 will be in Orlando and Scholarship Applications will open Jan 16th.
P. S I would like to take this opportunity to thank God, my family, my teachers and all my lovely friends who supported and helped me immensely in the process. Thank you, so much!!!
