My proposal titled  “Women and the Flat Connected World” was accepted at the  The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing. It will be held 30Sept-03Oct 2009 in Tucson, Arizona. The GHC 2009 theme is “Creating Technology for Social Good”.

Modern global companies allow for multiple forms of collaboration, without regard to geography, time, distance, culture or language; in essence, they create a “flat” world without such boundaries. The worlds of software, academia, journalism and business have seen a surge in world wide collaboration.  Technology companies have embraced new processes and employees have adapted themselves to the new model. Teams have become distributed and diverse. Individuals are empowered to collaborate and to be successful as a team. It could mean that individuals need to travel for longer periods of time across the globe, working at odd hours, working from home, or making other adjustments to accommodate a new working lifestyle. There are new collaborative tools used to be successful.

The panelists for my proposal include Bev Crair from Quantum Corporation, Claudia Galván from Microsoft, Kristin Yvonne Rozier from NASA, Lydia Ash from Google, Radha Ratnaparkhi from IBM and Sumitha Prashanth from Sun.  They are managers and engineers from the computing industry, who have been successful at delivering in worldwide teams. These women will discuss the issues women face working in a flat connected world, technology they use, and strategies they adopt to be successful.  They will also share their perspectives on their respective careers.

I am looking forward to conducting the panel discussion and being at the conference. It will be fun!