Virtual Grace Hopper Celebration EMEA: the biggest gathering of women working in Tech

After over 20 years of success in the US, the world’s biggest gathering of women working in TECH also knowns as GRACE HOPPER CELEBRATION (GHC) is coming for the first time to the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region (EMEA) from May 25 to 27, 2021.

In 1994, Dr. Anita Borg – founder of AnitaB.orgthe Global Organization for Women Technologists propelling tech equity for all women – and Dr. Telle Whitney have cocreated the Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) that became the greatest yearly gathering of women technologists in the world.

In 2020, faced with the realities of Covid-19, AnitaB.org has held the very first digital edition of the Grace Hopper Celebration, attracting over 30,000 participants from over 115 countries over the world, including two main speakers: Serena Williams and Megan Rapinoe. Earlier this year, AnitaB.org has also held the Virtual GHC India that gathered over 5,000 participants from all over India.

Building on these successes, the association decides to extend their conference cycle for the first time to the EMEA region. AnitaB.org current President and CEO Brenda Darden Wilkerson says: “Our top priority is to support all women technologists and achieve intersectional gender and pay parity in tech. Reaching and supporting new members over the world strengthens the power of our community and builds a world of inclusive technology”.

Because of the health context, this edition will go 100% digital featuring a cycle of conferences and meetings to enjoy online, the situation not enabling to host such an event on site.

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Housed and produced by AnitaB.org, the Virtual Grace Hopper Celebration EMEA will be a fully digital experience focusing on the creation of a community, the celebration of common goals, and the improvement of the geographic diversity of women technologists.

The goal of this celebration is to provide support, career development tools, and technical training to enable women to excel on the work market, while providing them with access to potential employers.

On the menu:

• Bara Buhnova: Associate Professor and Vice-Dean at Masaryk University (MU), Faculty of Informatics in Brno. Next to her academic activities, she is a Co-Founding and Governing Board member of Czechitas, a non-profit organisation aiming at making IT skills more accessible to youth and women. Bara is a member of multiple initiatives engaging more women in tech.
  
  
• Brenda Darden Wilkerson (AnitaB CEO): An advocate for access, opportunity, and social justice for underrepresented communities in technology. Her main mission is to build an ecosystem of inclusive technologies for all. During the Virtual Grace Hopper Celebration EMEA, she will welcome young Peace Nobel Prize Malala Yousafzai on Wednesday May 26, 2021.
  
  
• Sheree Atcheson (MC): Irish IT engineer with Sri-Lanka background, and global leader for diversity, equity and inclusion at Peakon. She used to work as Diversity and Inclusion Senior Exec at Monzo, and Inclusion Senior Exec at Deloitte. Atcheson has been listed by Computer Weekly as one of the UK’s Top Most Influential Women in Tech. She is the global ambassador for Women Who Code.
  
  
• Evelyn Namara: Technologist and entrepreneur with a strong interest in in the power of the Internet and life-changing solutions to enable a long-term development. Namara is fascinated by technology for development (ICT4D), Internet politics, as well as women’s empowerment in tech.
  
  
• Pelagia Majoni: Young 22-year-old Zimbabwean student fascinated by technology and caring about her native country’s social issues, in 2017, she creates a biologic system to create electric energy with rotted potatoes.
  
  
• Miruna Pislar: Research Engineer at DeepMind in Paris, working on the exploration problem in reinforcement learning and multi-agent social learning.