Noticias
December, 2023 – With more than 170 enthusiastic attendees, who filled the main auditorium of the Teaching Innovation Halls building at the University of Santiago de Chile (USACH), the XI Women in Computing Meeting ChileWiC2023 was held, an activity supported by the Millennium Institute Foundational Research on Data.
The event featured the presence of Carolina Gainza, the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Science, Knowledge, Technology, and Innovation, as one of the keynote speakers. “Our gender gap report, which I presented at this event, shows that we need more women in STEM fields, in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. It is very important what the academics and researchers within ChileWiC are doing, to magnify this message and stimulate progress,” stated the Undersecretary.
The event also included the participation of Jocelyn Dunstan Escudero as the first keynote speaker. She is an academic at the Department of Computer Science and the Institute of Mathematical and Computational Engineering at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Dunstan shared her professional journey, which took her from her studies in Physics to be currently leading novel research in data science applied to the healthcare field. “Having a space like ChileWiC to share our experiences as women in a highly male-dominated area is extremely necessary. Discussing our challenges, sharing our work, and especially how we approach the various situations that unite us is very useful and rewarding. It helps us to realize that we have many things in common and that we can indeed take actions to change what we want to change,” noted the academic, who is also a researcher at the Center for Mathematical Modeling (CMM) and the Millennium Institute Foundational Research on Data (IMFD).
Students competition
One of the most significant segments of ChileWiC is the student competition. Each participant gives a brief presentation about their initiative, which is later reinforced in scientific poster sessions. Claudia López, an academic at the Federico Santa María Technical University (UTFSM), a researcher at the Center for Research in Artificial Intelligence (Cenia), and the Millennium Nucleus FAIR, and co-chair of ChileWiC, highlights that “the student competition is one of the key highlights of the event. We love having participants from different universities and regions, and when we review the topics they are researching, we see that indeed, the inclusion of women means including topics that broaden the diversity of what is addressed.”
The individual competition winner is Isabel Alvarado, a doctoral student at Benito Juárez University (Mexico) and a computer science teacher at the University Mayor. She says, ‘My project is called AgustiSpeaks; it is just starting and has as inspiration my own son, who has autism grade 2-3. My idea is to contribute with new ideas to therapies addressing the communication needs of girls and boys with autism.’
Meanwhile, the winners of the team competition are Michelle Naour and Sofía Medina from the University of La Frontera, who are studying how to create an early warning system for landslides.
The audience award went to the project by Antonia Bravo from the Federico Santa María Technical University, Catalina Lenck from the University of Santiago de Chile, and Constanza Contreras, a doctoral student at the University of Chile, who are investigating techniques for locating illicit businesses.
For Violeta Chang, head of the Computer Science and Informatics degree program at USACH and host of the ChileWiC 2023 event, ‘These initiatives are essential not only to motivate more girls and women to pursue STEM careers but also to encourage them to stay in these fields because, while they enter, many do not continue. We believe that the lack of role models plays a role in this, and the women academics and professionals at ChileWiC aim to show them that they can study computer science and be successful and that there is a community of women willing to provide them with energy and support to move forward.’
ChileWiC 2023 was organized by the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, the Federico Santa María Technical University, the University of the Andes, the University of Chile, the University of La Frontera, the University Mayor, and the University of Santiago de Chile.
The event was sponsored by the Institute of Complex Systems Engineering (ISCI) and NIC Chile. It also had the collaboration of the Center for Research in Artificial Intelligence (Cenia) and the Millennium Institute Foundational Research on Data (IMFD).
Source: ChileWiC.cl
December, 2023 – With more than 170 enthusiastic attendees, who filled the main auditorium of the Teaching Innovation Halls building at the University of Santiago de Chile (USACH), the XI Women in Computing Meeting ChileWiC2023 was held, an activity supported by the Millennium Institute Foundational Research on Data.
The event featured the presence of Carolina Gainza, the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Science, Knowledge, Technology, and Innovation, as one of the keynote speakers. “Our gender gap report, which I presented at this event, shows that we need more women in STEM fields, in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. It is very important what the academics and researchers within ChileWiC are doing, to magnify this message and stimulate progress,” stated the Undersecretary.
The event also included the participation of Jocelyn Dunstan Escudero as the first keynote speaker. She is an academic at the Department of Computer Science and the Institute of Mathematical and Computational Engineering at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Dunstan shared her professional journey, which took her from her studies in Physics to be currently leading novel research in data science applied to the healthcare field. “Having a space like ChileWiC to share our experiences as women in a highly male-dominated area is extremely necessary. Discussing our challenges, sharing our work, and especially how we approach the various situations that unite us is very useful and rewarding. It helps us to realize that we have many things in common and that we can indeed take actions to change what we want to change,” noted the academic, who is also a researcher at the Center for Mathematical Modeling (CMM) and the Millennium Institute Foundational Research on Data (IMFD).
Students competition
One of the most significant segments of ChileWiC is the student competition. Each participant gives a brief presentation about their initiative, which is later reinforced in scientific poster sessions. Claudia López, an academic at the Federico Santa María Technical University (UTFSM), a researcher at the Center for Research in Artificial Intelligence (Cenia), and the Millennium Nucleus FAIR, and co-chair of ChileWiC, highlights that “the student competition is one of the key highlights of the event. We love having participants from different universities and regions, and when we review the topics they are researching, we see that indeed, the inclusion of women means including topics that broaden the diversity of what is addressed.”
The individual competition winner is Isabel Alvarado, a doctoral student at Benito Juárez University (Mexico) and a computer science teacher at the University Mayor. She says, ‘My project is called AgustiSpeaks; it is just starting and has as inspiration my own son, who has autism grade 2-3. My idea is to contribute with new ideas to therapies addressing the communication needs of girls and boys with autism.’
Meanwhile, the winners of the team competition are Michelle Naour and Sofía Medina from the University of La Frontera, who are studying how to create an early warning system for landslides.
The audience award went to the project by Antonia Bravo from the Federico Santa María Technical University, Catalina Lenck from the University of Santiago de Chile, and Constanza Contreras, a doctoral student at the University of Chile, who are investigating techniques for locating illicit businesses.
For Violeta Chang, head of the Computer Science and Informatics degree program at USACH and host of the ChileWiC 2023 event, ‘These initiatives are essential not only to motivate more girls and women to pursue STEM careers but also to encourage them to stay in these fields because, while they enter, many do not continue. We believe that the lack of role models plays a role in this, and the women academics and professionals at ChileWiC aim to show them that they can study computer science and be successful and that there is a community of women willing to provide them with energy and support to move forward.’
ChileWiC 2023 was organized by the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, the Federico Santa María Technical University, the University of the Andes, the University of Chile, the University of La Frontera, the University Mayor, and the University of Santiago de Chile.
The event was sponsored by the Institute of Complex Systems Engineering (ISCI) and NIC Chile. It also had the collaboration of the Center for Research in Artificial Intelligence (Cenia) and the Millennium Institute Foundational Research on Data (IMFD).
Source: ChileWiC.cl
