How I became a GHC (Grace Hopper Conference) Speaker, from a 2023 GHC Speaker
Tags: ghc, gracehopperconference
Published: 2023-12-23 02:36:52



I’m excited to have spoken this year at the Grace Hopper Conference as a computer science student! My talk was focused on empowering individuals to build a campus community. I shared my experience starting the women in computer science committee and how I leverage the resources from partner organizations, clubs, and my school to create compelling, engaging, and valuable events for the student population. 
I also went through how I marketed the events and got hundreds of students to attend these events this year and join the community. 

I will try to keep this article concise, short, and sweet in honor of GHC approaching - I know everyone is preparing for exams or the upcoming holiday season, and if anything, I hope this article can potentially be a catalyst for future conversations at the event and beyond! 

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/z1yaw559fnovrjofwo5v.png)

My process was a bit unique, and I hope it can provide some insights for others interested in getting involved in the GHC community. (This is virtual, and I am sure there will be other requirements for the person) 

I had just finished my sophomore year of CS and realized there was no significant in-person presence at my campus. On campus, I mean, when you walk up to the doors of the computer science building, there is a rush of people immediately, but there is no commonplace that you can call "community.” The classrooms upstairs are mostly unknown to most students, with the exception of labs, and the space itself feels foreign even after having spent years here. 

There was a new room where people could study in groups, but it holds probably 20 people max and is usually filled with students on a time crunch doing group projects or empty throughout the day, and no significant space is created for those who are in computer science and want to meet others in the community. 

Some clubs would hold virtual events and generally fall under the area of technology, but for computer science specifically, there was no common community. Noticing that there were many women in CS clubs on campuses across Canada, such as Waterloo and UBC, I wanted to bring this energy to my university specifically with a focus on collaboration with the school faculty for increased sponsorship, and applied for the AnitaB Pass It On Grant. 

As a DSC (Developer Student Club) lead, I believe this strong partnership between our committees would enable us to deliver even more impact, and it for sure did - that year, we were able to organize numerous workshops with corporate partners like Salesforce on Technical, Behavioural DSA, and General Interviews, and give students a community to learn from each other. We organized an International Women’s Day event in partnership with the Ivey Business School and their Hackathon event in March, where we were able to support students in navigating the new normal as emerging technologies continue to evolve - students were able to learn from Ada, a TPM at Google in ML, as well as other Developers from the Google Developer Community to facilitate workshops on Flutter, a cross-platform mobile application development SDK which enabled students to develop their skills during the challenge. 

I also had multiple discussions with the chair of the department of computer science, the chair of the faculty of science, where we discussed the experiences of marginalized students in science and computer science and how we could partner to improve the student experience. 

I was the campus lead for the Percentage Project, a data-driven campaign to 

This is among the many events we had during the school year with DSC, and I’m proud of our progress as the membership grew from 100 to over 450 members.