One of my dream will be reality. Connection between the successful Ada project and our weLead. Picture taken at the 1st One of my dream will be reality. Connection between the successful Ada project and our weLead. Picture taken at the 1st European celebration of Women in Computing

I have written my position paper for the 1st International Workshop on the Leadership of Women in Computing Science – Special theme: Mentorship Framework (June 14th).

I kindly invite you to write your one page paper and commit to attend the workshop. WeLead has 20 fellowships to cover your registration to the workshop (including the grand dinner) and travels to Trondheim.

We also promise the best keynote talks!

Title: Novel Perspectives on Mentoring in Computer Science

Speaker: Prof. Patricia Lago, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Title: Conceptualizing Effective Mentoring Relationships in Academia: Challenges and Opportunities with the Apprenticeship Model

In advance of ARM Norway’s celebration of the International Women’s day on Friday (invitation attached), you may find inspiration by looking at the following Ted-Talks:

Why it is time to forget the pecking order at work, by Margaret Heffernan: Organizations are often run according to “the superchicken model,” where the value is placed on star employees who outperform others. And yet, this isn’t what drives the most high-achieving teams.

We’re raising our girls to be perfect, and we’re raising our boys to be brave, says Reshma Saujani, the founder of Girls Who Code:

I also wanted to share the latest blog-post form Simon where he talks about Diversity and Inclusion (in case you haven’t read it yet)

I just come home from DigIt. Thanks to NxtMedia Trond Hovland, to Jaya Thomlison, Tanja Holmen, and Ingeborg Volan. Ingeborg made me cry during her speach, Jaya makes me smile and gave me a lot of energy. Tanja and Hovland, without them, there cannot be 8.3. Thanks to Soudabeh and all #weLead positive women. And the winner is…

Berit Marie Alvestrand (33) – Lead UX designer, EGGS design, tidligere ‘Technology Product Manager,’ Zedge

Hun har skapte nye digitale konsepter og økt kommunikasjon innenfor teknologi bransjen gjennom tiltak som Zedge hackathons, og Trondheim Developer Conference. Hun har dratt positivt på svært høy nivå til fremme av IT- og medieteknologi i regionen.

Vår dyktige NTNU Katina Kralevska var en av de fire finalister.

Katina Kralevska er doktorgradstudent (PhD) ved institutt for telematikk, NTNU. Hun er en særdeles dyktig student og publiserer artikler med høy vitenskapelig kvalitet. I tillegg til phd-studiene har Katina vært aktiv med innovasjon. Basert på ideene fra hennes forskningsarbeid om “Erasure Coding”, som forbedrer ytelsen på lagringsløsninger, har hun i samarbeid med NTNU Technology Transfer AS etablert bedriften OptiStore. (Se artikkel i Digi.no, 3. februar.)

OptiStore har fått ca 10 MNOK i støtte fra forskningsrådet og NTNU Discovery, og har per i dag fire heltidsansatte og to deltidsansatte med kontor i midtbyen i Trondheim. Katina har hele tiden vært sentral i utviklingen av OptiStore, som en av hovedgründerne og med et produkt som er basert på hennes forskning. Dette er det hun har oppnådd siden hun kom til Norge som phd-student for ca 3,5 år siden. I tillegg har hun lært seg norsk og tar nå nivå 4 norskkurs.

Thanks to the enthusiastic efforts of Soudabeh Khodambashi and Özlem Özgöbek, WeLead has now a home page – https://www.ntnu.edu/welead

Please tell us how we should improve it

I dag ble jeg spurt om hva jeg vil oppnå med #WeLead …
Når det gjelder #WeLead det jeg vil oppnå er å akselerere endringsprosess rundt Kvinner og IKT. Jeg sitter som eneste dame i en ledergruppe med 1 dekan + 2 prodekaner + 5 andre instituttledere + 2 studenter. Til sammen 10 norske menn og meg. I min egen ledergruppe på IDI er igjen jeg pluss 8 menn. Riktig nok flere utlendinger. Noe må gjøres. Jeg sitter i forskjellige styrer rundt omkring, mange menn og maks en dame til.
Det verste som kan skje meg er at jeg en dag slutter og det er ingen damer i lederstilling på hele IME (IKT) fakultet.

Vi har noen damer som er veldig flinke. Hvorfor tar de ikke lederstillinger? Det samme gjelder egentlig utlendinger. Det blir feil hvis norske menn skal sitte rundt bordet å bestemme om forskning og undervisning og kvinner og utlendinger skal jobbe i et system som de ikke er med å skape og å endre.

#WeLead er ikke en dameklubb, men et forsøk for å forbedre forskning og undervisning på NTNU og i Norge generelt. Jeg legger ved sammendrag av #WeLead. På bloggen min har jeg blogget masse om dette https://letiziajaccheri.org/tag/women-in-computing/

Introduction
Leadership program for women in computer sciences (WeLead) started in 2014 by Department of Computer and Information Science (IDI). In 2015 the Telematics department (ITEM) joined.
The leadership program involves professional training to be able to manage the gender biases that are embedded in the current system, and be more strategic in scientific career development and advancement. Furthermore, another important focus is to strengthen internal and external networking. The program wants therefore to collaborate with other similar programs locally and internationally and regularly invites highly recognized international female scientists.
WeLead motivation
It has been long recognized that more women need to be attracted to Computer Science (CS) programs globally (Frenkel, 1990). As of today in Norway, only 26% of professor positions are held by women (Rønnen, 2015). Gender balance in academic positions is a recognized goal in the Norwegian society.
Our main goal in 2016
 Increase program participants’ mentoring: The goal for each is to have their own internationally recognized career mentor. As part of this, we seek also to offer a recognition for highly successful females in top in science or technology.
 Broaden program participants’ networking capacity: By participating to Norwegian, European and an American networking event & career fair, we are aimimg to broaden our network nationally and internationally.
 Raise program awareness locally, nationally and internationally: The goal is to stabilize a more permanent funding base for the Leadership Program according to the roadmap defined.

Contact person:
Project Coordinator: Katja Abrahamsson, department of Computer and Information Science, NTNU
Project Co-coordinatotor: Soudabeh Khodambashi, department of Computer and Information Science, NTNU
Web responsible: Özlem Özgöbek, department of Computer and Information Science, NTNU
Project Responsible: Letizia Jaccheri, department of Computer and Information Science, NTNU
Co-responsible: Harald Øverby, Department of Telematics, NTNU
Co-responsible: Laura Georg,Department of Information and Media Technology, Gjøvik University College becoming in January 2016 part of NTNU