WiDS ambassadors provided the following event summaries, screenshots, and videos for you to enjoy: WiDS Tel Aviv  For the 5th year in a row, Intuit Israel organized WiDS Tel Aviv, led by WiDS ambassadors Or Basson and Noah Eyal Altman. The in-person event took place at the “Sheva” venue in Tel Aviv for a full day, including inspiring technical talks and breakout activities led by 32 female speakers and attended by 315 participants. This year, the number of speaker proposals for the conference increased by 100%. They also hosted the annual speakers’ meetup prior to the WiDS Tel Aviv, held at the Intuit Israel offices. The PR coverage (podcast, article, blog) and LinkedIn and Facebook social media efforts resulted in the total exposure of ~14.5M unique monthly visitors. The wide-spread exposure created a buzz, even after registration had closed at full capacity. All proceeds from WiDS Tel Aviv 2022 were donated to the Michal Sela Forum, a non-profit organization dedicated to saving lives and combating domestic violence through innovation and technology. WiDS Riverside  The 2nd annual WiDS Riverside event took place on April 9th, 2022. This one-day virtual event was hosted by WiDS Ambassadors Analisa Flores, Joyce Fu, Phoebe Ly, and Mariam Salloum as a joint collaboration between the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) and the Department of Statistics (STAT) at the University of California, Riverside (UCR). Attendees joined multiple sessions throughout the day starting with a research talk given by Sherrie Wang, a Ciriacy-Wantrup Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley, titled “Using Space Lidar to Map Tall and Short Crops Around the World”. The research talk was followed by a panel session with CSE and STAT PhD students working on data science research. Dawon Ahn, Rebecca Kurtz-Garcia, Ruihan Lu, and Yunshu Wu provided overviews of their research areas and shared their experiences as graduate students. A panel session of data scientists featured women from both academia and industry talking about their careers, technology trends, challenges and successes, and advice for aspiring data scientists. Panelists included Jia Chen (Assistant Teaching Professor at UCR), Saheli Ghosh (Senior Software Engineer at PayPal), Katy Li (Data Science Advisor at Southern California Edison), and Mo Li (Principal Data Scientist at Neustar, Inc.). Other sessions held were an information presentation for UCR”s new Bachelor’s in Data Science program and R/Python workshops for beginner and advanced users. The WiDS Riverside Ambassadors look forward to organizing future WiDS events. WiDS South Florida The annual WiDS South Florida event was hosted by NextEra Energy at the Lew Hay III Learning Center at the Juno Beach office. The event was open to all employees in-person, and was available via livestream for the general public. Rana El Kaliouby, founder of Affectiva and Deputy CEO of SmartEye, gave a keynote talk about her work creating a category defining an AI company and the importance of ethics in AI. Lightning talks were presented by Cathy Miron, CEO at eSilo, Olivia Ramos, CEO at DeepBlocks, Catalina Arango, Agile Leader at NextEra Energy, and Kelly Jin, VP at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Rebecca Kujawa, CEO of NextEra Energy Resources, provided the opening remarks, and Dana Smith, Sr., manager of Nuclear IT, was the emcee. The event was hosted by a non-profit organization under the name of “WiDS Miami” for the past five years. This year, as NextEra Energy hosted and sponsored the event, it was broadened in scope to WiDS South Florida to include the entire region and reflect our strong presence throughout South Florida. The WiDS South Florida Committee, led by WiDS Ambassador Lissette Melendez and Co-Ambassador Catalina Arango includes Kimone Johnson-Cyber, Marcos Munoz, Sri Vemulapalli, Hisako Komiyama, Alina Tamrakar. The team organized the event and will continue to work on building the WiDS South Florida community. If you are interested in helping shape the WiDS Community in South Florida, please contact widssfl@gmail.com Watch videos from WiDS South Florida. WiDS Coruña  WiDS Coruña took place on March 25th at the NH Collection A Coruña Finisterre Hotel, organized by WiDS ambassador Cristina Gil Rey, CEO of Milbrait Asesores. The event provided visibility to relevant women who play a remarkable role in the field of data science. Attendees were able to learn first-hand about the opinions, life, and professional experiences of highly relevant women in their professional fields. WiDS Coruña organizes an annual forum in which the most outstanding women of their country give testimony of their activity with the aim of being an inspiration for present and future generations. It featured renowned panelists in data science such as Julia Díaz Bertha Guijarro Berta Ares Lombán Mariola Lobato Consuelo Gargantilla Susana Ladra Idoia Salazar, Clara Lapiedra, Adriana Salabert, Paloma Recuero de los Santos, Marta Fernández Poyatos, Verónica Bolón Canedo, Lara Piñeiro Rodríguez Watch videos from WiDS Coruna. WiDS Stockholm  WiDS Stockholm was held online on March 17th with 230 attendees. They used a new online platform called Airmeet, allowing them to have sponsor booths and tables for mingling all in one place. The conference consisted of 6 keynote speakers from different fields, as well as 5 lightning talks, and a panel which was made up of their own WiDS ambassadors. When asked what participants' favorite part of the conference was, one attendee responded, “To see female role models. I am surrounded by excellent men working in this field but representation is really key. Now I can see MYSELF in this field in another way and I am more curious than scared for its complexity and challenges” WiDS Belgrade  The first WiDS Belgrade 2022 conference, the 4th WiDS Serbia event, was a big success. The event was hosted on 26th March, at ICT Hub Belgrade by three WiDS ambassadors in Serbia Isidora Gatarić, Valentina Đorđević and Tatjana Kecojevic. WiDS Belgrade included two parts: Robotics for mums and kids organized by Anica (Vulović) Pavlović’s “Deciji Inovativni Centar” and a data science panel discussion. The conference was well attended, and the ambassadors enjoyed adopting a new format for the event. Robotics for mum and kids was a fun way to engage with children in the process of learning important STEAM related skills. Highlighting the potential for the application of STEAM as a multi- and cross-disciplinary concept was an empowering undertaking. Just as smart technology offers connectivity far beyond our imagination, robots are beginning to exceed physical capabilities using artificial intelligence (AI), and cognitive skills far beyond our expectations. It can help solve significant challenges such as current environmental threats and global conflicts. It is important to prepare the next generation for the future, and most importantly, have fun learning and experimenting with it. Read more about the event in this recap article. WiDS Madrid @ URJC The annual WiDS Madrid @ URJC took place on April 21st in the Auditorium of the Library of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Rey Juan Carlos University. The event could also be followed through live streaming for all those people who could not attend in person. It was sponsored by the Rey Juan Carlos University and MPLSAP, with the support of the SAP Next-Gen initiative. This year the event was focused on Female Entrepreneurship in Data Science, and Entrepreneurs of renowned companies such as Usyncro, ADDvance, Atos and the Moratalaz and Vicálvaro Business Incubators took part in it. In the first part of the event, Professor Carmen de Pablos Heredero gave a keynote presentation about the WIDS initiative. After that, they had the pleasure of listening to Cristina Martín Lorenzo, CEO of Usyncro who talked about the creation of Usyncro and how they use blockchain in logistic supply chain transport in international projects. Next, Débora de Esteban, Technical advisor for entrepreneurs in the Moratalaz Business Incubator, Madrid, explained how the Incubators in Madrid can help women to undertake data science. After the break, Elvira León, CEO of Addvance, talked about the big mistakes made when undertaking and explained what they do in Addvance and the creation of value of their projects focused on R&D in digital materials printing. Later, Ana Asensio Ciria, director of the Business Incubator at Vicálvaro, Madrid indicated the operational aspects that women must face in the creation of data science companies. She also described the recent launch of the "Spinout" Acceleration Program within the Rey Juan Carlos University. Finally, an interesting colloquium was held on the role of the University in the training and orientation of women towards starting businesses in data science, moderated by the director of the Master in the Management of Logistics Projects SAP, MPLSAP at the Rey Juan Carlos University, Monica of Pablos Heredero. Watch the video recording of WiDS Madrid @ URJC. WiDS Montevideo  The 3rd annual WiDS Montevideo was organized by WiDS Ambassador Ceibal on April 28th. During the morning, attendees listened to live talks on various applications of data science in everyday topics such as education and health. This year's theme "Leading Women in Data Science: Techniques and Experiences," emphasized exposing different techniques in machine learning and image recognition, with the aim of inspiring more girls and women to join this field. With 24 speakers and more than 200 people registered, WiDS Montevideo presented the work of outstanding Uruguayan women with the participation of Ceibal’s CEO, Fiorella Haim, as the main speaker. At the close of the event, the Vice President of the Republic, Beatriz Argimón–the first woman elected to hold that position–mentioned made these timeless remarks, "Women have a different view, neither better nor worse than men. But complementary. Therefore, this gaze cannot be ignored.” Watch the WiDS Montevideo replay video. WiDS Central Massachusetts @ WPI  WiDS Central Massachusetts @ WPI serves as a local hub for mentoring, networking, and inspiring an inclusive community of students, faculty and professionals. This year the event incorporated a keynote, career panel, tech talks, poster session, hands-on table projects, and data competitions. The WiDS ambassadors organizing the event are passionate about continuing this inspiring program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute as an annual event due to its significant impacts on their local and greater community. March 2022 marked their 5th year hosting WiDS Central Massachusetts @ WPI, both in-person and online. Face-to-face events allow them to bring the local community together in a meaningful and impactful way. The virtual setting has allowed them to expand outreach efforts and reach a broader audience. This provides the ability to attract new and diverse speakers as well as foster relationships with speakers and participants on a global scale that they can leverage in future years. They have made it a goal to increase participation in STEM programs, and WiDS serves as an excellent platform to promote STEM and the great work women are doing in this field. They are thrilled to announce this year that they had over 200 attendees participate in the virtual event, including attendees from all over the globe. WiDS ambassadors look forward to bringing this energy as they pivot and begin planning for the next in-person event in March 2023! WiDS Barcelona  The 2nd edition of WiDS Barcelona was successfully held on April 20th, with ~70 attendees. The event was timely, with speakers meeting in-person with attendees at the Manuel Martí Recober auditorium of the Barcelona School of Informatics (FIB – UPC) and streamed on YouTube. The sessions were spoken live in both Catalan and Spanish. All sessions were recorded, with English subtitles. The opening session was conducted by WiDS Ambassadors Karina Gibert and Nuria Castell. The event included two panels. The first one was dedicated to the Catalan ecosystem of data science and engineering, while the second one was a discussion about sex, pornography and control with data and technology, and how we can defend and protect ourselves from the criminals. The closing session was chaired by Joana Barbany, General Manager of Digital Society, Department of Digital Policies and Territory, Generalitat de Catalunya. Read more about the event in this newsletter article written by WiDS Ambassadors Karina Gibert and Núria Castell. You can also visit their website, where ambassadors have published an e-book featuring photos and bios of all women actively involved in the event as a part of their "female talent visibilitation" mission. Video recordings of the Opening and Round Table #1 and Round Table #2 are also available to watch. They are prepared for automatic translation in many different languages Just choose your language on the subtitles icon of the videos WiDS Dhahran @ KFUPM  WiDS Dhaharan @ KFUPM was in a hybrid format featuring prominent female speakers in the data science field with ~400 attendees. It started with a welcoming speech by the WiDS ambassador Dr. Rabeah Al-Zaidy then proceeded to the first session under the theme of data science in energy. This session had two keynotes by Dr. Claire Birnie on the use of natural language processing for sorting geoscientific documents and Eng. Hana AlMatouq on the role of data science in reservoir fluid characterization. The keynotes were followed by two technical talks by Eng. Marwa AlSinan with the title “Fracture Permeability Estimation Under Complex Physics: A Data-Driven Model Using Machine Learning'' and Ms. Sahar Alwadei with the title “Predicting Solar Irradiance: Data Before Models”. The second session focused on Natural Language Processing with a keynote by Dr. Nora AlTwairesh which discussed the evolution of language models and their attribution to the recent advancements in NLP. Another keynote was by Dr. Houda Bouamor on the challenges that face dialectal Arabic. The keynotes were followed by two technical talks by Dr. Norah Alnaim with the title “Sentiment analysis for cruises in Saudi Arabia on social media platforms using machine learning algorithms”, and Dr. Dina Alabbad with the title “Synthetic Speech”. The final session had a parallel session that included a poster session and two technical workshops from the industry delivered by Eng. Mais Alheraki with the title “Build cross-platform apps with Flutter and Firebase” and Eng. Anfal Alatawi with the title “Notebooks to MVP”. The session then proceeded with two talks given by Eng. Gaida Altassan, sharing the Success Story of Fathom Company, a data science focused company, and Ms. Badour AlBahar with the title “Pose with Style” in which GANs were used to enhance the pose when taking pictures or modeling. Finally, the closing remarks of the technical sessions were given by WiDS co-ambassador Ms. Asma Yamani. The technical sessions were followed by the Award Ceremony of بلهجتك (In your dialect) challenge that focused on automatic data collection and annotation of Arabic Dialects, which included more than 500+ participants across 15 countries. WiDS Riyadh @ PSU  The 5th annual WiDS Riyadh @ PSU is led by WiDS Ambassador Dr. Tanzila Saba, and organized by Prince Sultan University, represented by the Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics research lab (AIDA). The event aims to foster interest and professional participation by women in data science, engineering and computer science. The conference also exposed the latest data science research and practices in the Arab Middle East by promoting the exchange of ideas, encouraging mentorship, and interdisciplinary collaboration. WiDS Riyadh @ PSU brought together high-profile international researchers and industry pioneers. Dr. Heba Khoshaim, Vice-President Prince sultan University-Female Campus says, “It’s this time of the year again to showcase women’s achievements in data sciences. Let us share ... discuss and elaborate. Today, women plan to accomplish... and achieve to inspire,” WiDS Riyadh @ PSU has led efforts participating in both the WiDS Datathon, and WiDS Ed Outreach Program. Dr. Tanzila Saba says, “The field of ‘Data Science for Social Good’ is growing fast. Exciting opportunities provided by data science when applied to the fields of social innovation, philanthropy, international development and humanitarian aid.” As a part of the event programming, WiDS Riyadh @ PSU has also led workshops, panel discussions, and keynotes, deep diving into topics such as NLP, Python, Data Visualization, and more. Authors from all over the world presented 40 research papers and 14 posters. Watch this highlight video and read Press Releases coverages where the event was featured in ArabNews 2022 and Saudi Press and Riyadh Daily. You can also view the full event report. Thank you, WiDS ambassadors!
Thank you to all of the WiDS ambassadors for your dedication and hard work organizing and hosting WiDS regional events, worldwide! You’re making an impact in your cohort, and with your colleagues and community, and are a crucial part of the WiDS Worldwide movement. Related Articles: Comments are closed.
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