Report, photos and videos from the 2nd Summit on Gender Equality in Computing (GEC 2020)

Report on the 2nd Summit on Gender Equality in Computing (GEC 2020), along with photos and video.

Due to the covid19 pandemic, the 2nd Summit on Gender Equality in Computing, organized by the Greek ACM-W Chapter, took place online on June 12, 2020. The Summit aims at promoting gender-equal access to the computer-related scientific frontiers, encouraging and educating women and men in an equal way to achieve their goals and utilize their potential in digital professions. The goal of the Summit is also to celebrate and disseminate the achievements of computer professionals in a fair and gender-equal way. Through a series of activities (including invited talks, a workshop, a panel, and an industry session), attendees had the opportunity to become acquainted to current and emerging topics and important achievements in computer science (CS).

GEC2020 medley

Workshop

The Summit activities began with a workshop titled "Red threads, choices and the ‘good’ academic life" by Prof. Geraldine Fitzpatrick, Ηead of the Human Computer Interaction Group, TU Wien Informatics, Austria. The workshop aimed at exploring how to make good choices and what powers we have to craft a good academic life/career. It also discussed practical strategies for how to say yes/no strategically in order to achieve our professional goals and potential.

 

Keynote talks

The programme included three keynote talks in cutting edge research topics, delivered by internationally renowned researchers:

  • Anastasia Ailamaki, EPFL
  • Stratos Idreos, Harvard University
  • Liuba Shrira, Brandeis University

 

Industry Talks

The industry session provided GEC attendees the unique opportunity to hear about interesting topics and projects in which the event’s industrial sponsors and other stakeholders are involved. The track hosted four interesting talks by women in senior technical positions in the industrial sector, who shared experience and their technical knowledge with the attendees. Their presentations touched upon a wide variety of topics, including

  1. Exploring the Benefits of Gender Diversity in Cybersecurity (in particular, the importance of security to practice in IT Roles, how security knowledge and skills enhance IT careers, how women can help fill the cybersecurity skills gap as well as tips for getting ahead, and other topics);
  2. Technological trends and innovations in digital security and public safety IT solutions (in particular, recent trends and advancements in methods and tools for next generation security IT solutions, distributed ledger technologies for sensitive data exchanges, federated and machine learning paradigms for threat/anomaly detection, visual analytics for effective situational awareness and decision support);
  3. How Artificial Intelligence can transform the way we live (including examples of interconnected devices and applications that are indicative of the current AI/Machine Learning landscape and Google’s contribution to this AI era).

Session Speakers:

  • Katerina Kalimeri, Oracle
  • Sofia Tsekeridou, INTRASOFT International
  • Ilianna Kollia, IBM
  • Marily Nika, Google


Panel: "Is Artificial Intelligence gendered?"

GEC 2020 hosted a stimulating panel touching upon different aspects of the impact of AI on people’s lives, including issues of AI fairness. Specifically, the panel discussion covered topics such as:

  1. AI Benefits, Impact, Real-world Applications
    Fields and applications that leverage AI. How can AI help in Education and Culture? How can Europe efficiently unite AI activities to the benefit of European society?
  2. Biases-Risks
    Is AI biased? What are the different forms of Bias in Data-driven AI Systems and how can it affect us? How could AI affect children and their rights? What is done and what needs to be done further?
  3. Human AI – Responsible and Ethical AI
    Human intelligence, Artificial Intelligence, Human AI and Humane AI. Responsible AI and how can we achieve it.
  4. AI and People
    Who are the AI people? Can we find a human somewhere in the mind of an AI? If so, where and who would this human be?

Moderator: Georgia Koutrika, Athena Research and Innovation Center

Panelists:

  • Vicky Charisi, European Commission
  • George Giannakopoulos, NCSR "Demokritos"
  • Manolis Koubarakis, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
  • Irene Ntoutsi, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munich

 

Download the report [pdf]:

GEC 2020 Report

The entire event was live-streamed and has been recorded on the Greek ACM-W Chapter’s:

 

GEC 2020 would like to thank its supporters and sponsors, all who contributed to make this event so successful, and of course its attendees for their participation and enthusiasm!

Supported by:

                                

Sponsors:

 

 

General Chairs