MinneWIC 2010
The First Regional Celebration of Women in Computing in the Upper MidWest

February 12-13, 2010
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN

What is MinneWIC?

MinneWIC is the first regional celebration of Women in Computing in the upper midwest. We have chosen to call it MinneWIC from the native american word "Minne" that means water.

This regional meeting, modeled after the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, will bring together students, faculty, and technology leaders from across Minnesota and neighboring states to discuss the role of women in today's computing and technology fields, share experiences and strategies for success, and explore issues common to women working in these fields. Specifically, the goal is to provide an opportunity for young women to explore opportunities in computing, to network with other women from academia, industry and government, and to create friendship among women in the region who share the same interest and passion for computing. This celebration is part of a nationwide effort to address the alarming decline of women choosing computer science professions.

What will happen at MinneWIC?

MinneWIC will start late Friday afternoon February 12 and continue until early afternoon on Saturday February 13. Details will be listed in the Program once they are finalized. We have an exciting list of speakers: Jessica Hodgins from CMU, Gilda Garreton from Sun Microsystems, Jerri Barrett from the Anita Borg Institute, and Lecia Barker from the University of Texas at Austin.

Who can attend MinneWIC?

You should attend if you are interested in learning about the challenges and rewards of computing careers or in advancing technology through broader representation of women. We encourage undergraduate, and graduate students with interests in computing and information technology to attend and also to submit work in the appropriate categories (see Call for Participation). We invite faculty and technology leaders to come meet and mentor the next generation of computing professionals. High school students interested in computing are also welcome to attend.

Congratulations to the award winners

Emily Jones, from St. Olaf won the undergraduate best poster prize -- a trip to the Grace Murray Hopper Women in Computing conference in Atlanta next fall, with her poster "Segmentation-Based Image Compression". See a longer story.
Katie Wolf, from the University of Minnesota, with her poster "Bird Species Recognition through Spectrogram Processing and Labeling" and Jaelle Scheuerman, Robyn Krage, Lori Rebenitsch with their poster "A Framework for Developing Multitouch Applications to Enhance K-12 Education" were the runners up.
Katherine Panciera, from the University of Minnesota, won the graduate best poster prize -- a trip to the Grace Murray Hopper Women in Computing conference in Atlanta next fall, with her poster "Wikipedians? Cyclopaths? A Quantitative Analysis of Power Users in Online Communities".
Elizabeth Jensen, from the University of Minnesota, with her poster "Sustainable Multi-Robot Patrol of an Open Polyline" was the runner up.