Sunday July 26
Room 452 in the New Building of Facultad de Ciencias Económicas
The program for this half-day workshop will include:
8:45-9:00 introductions
9:00-9:45 invited talk by Marie DesJardins (University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA)
"Being a Woman in AI: Finding Balance and Joy"
9:45-10:30 group discussion
10:30-11:00 coffee break
11:00-12:00 contributed presentations (10 minutes each):
Viviana Cotik, Rosana Matuk Herrera and Natalia Debandi (Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina)
A Reflection about the Proportion of Women in the Information Technology Degrees at the Universidad de Buenos Aires
In the beginning of computer science (CS) history, many programmers were women. The proportion of men-women CS students has been decreasing since then. We present a brief survey about the gender proportion of computer scientists in different parts of the world, elaborate some hypothesis of the reason for this situation, and present some proposals to change this situation.
Elizabeth Jensen (University of Minnesota, USA)
Using Robots to Engage Middle School Students in Computer Science
There is a general consensus that an early start can get students interested in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), but simple exposure often isn't enough to keep them interested through the years and into their career planning. Programs such as FIRST LEGO League and the following FIRST challenges offer a means to engage students, starting as early as kindergarten, and keep them engaged in the program through high school. We present an overview and brief analysis of two programs in which we have been mentors and instructors for 7+ years, and discuss how the differences in the programs affect their impact on the students, and in particular how it affects female students.
Masoumeh Mansouri (Örebro University, Sweden)
Women Are Just Not Interested in Computer Science”: a Convenient Falsehood, a Convenient Truth
``Women are just not interested'' in computer science is a quote repeated again and again to establish the easiest possible endpoint for a complex process that has formed over time due to various and multiple reasons. This paper explains why women are not interested in computer science, points out the importance of women's involvement in this field, and discusses some possible solutions.
Zohreh Shams (University of Bath. UK)
Promotion of Women in Science
I am a PhD student and a member of Athena Swan team in our department (department of computer science). Athena Swan is a scheme established in 2005 in the UK that promotes the career progression of women in science, technology, engineering, math and medicine (STEMM). You can find all the details about this scheme here: http://www.ecu.ac.uk/equality-charters/athena-swan/. As a part of Athena Swan committee in our department, I was involved in putting forward an application for our department for the first time. Myself and two other colleagues were in charge of running a focus group in the department to identify bad and good practices that encourage and discourage women in our department. Theme identified were then subject to debate within the Athena Swan committee team to sought solutions for in terms of an action plan that can improve the positive practices further and enhance the negative ones. The result of our focus group and questionnaire were all incorporated in the final departmental application that is currently under assessment.
Denise Szecsei and Marie Manner (University of Iowa, University of Minnesota, USA)
Girls and Robots in the Performing Arts.
The percentage of women graduating with IT degrees has been on the decline for decades, which is impacted by the fact that girls’ interest in STEM fields drops before middle school, well before undergraduate education. We seek to address the problem in elementary school, getting girls interested in technology by using robots to teach computational thinking in interdisciplinary, project-based classes and summer camps. We use storytelling and performance with programmable humanoid robots as performers to integrate the arts and sciences and introduce core computational concepts to students who may not have an interest in traditional STEM fields. We provide an opportunity for students to obtain first-hand experience programming robots to perform theatrical skits and dance recitals. In the process, we will help students understand the role that creativity plays in technology and provide the opportunity to learn computer science in the context of performing arts.
Marie desJardins and Penny Rheingans (University of Maryland, Baltimore County, USA)
Women in AI and CS: Pipelines, Pathways, and Patterns
We briefly survey the state of gender underrepresentation in computer science and some of its potential causes. We describe efforts at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) to increase gender parity, speculate about some potential causes for the low numbers of women in AI specifically, and propose studies that could be done to explore and address these issues.
12:00-12:45 group discussion
12:45-2:00 lunch where we will discuss current situation and plan how to improve it. Lunch will be provided at the workshop site or we will go out to lunch together at a nearby location.