Yahoo! showed up in purple fashion at this year’s Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference in Baltimore, MD. Grace Hopper is one of the largest global conferences for women in computing. This year's theme “Are We There Yet?” took a closer look at the culture of technology and how it’s continuously evolving. The keynote speakers Nora Denzel and Anita Young discussed the new trend of IT revolution in which a gender diverse team could make better decisions for all consumers. Other sessions covered topics such as Big Data, Cyber-security and women leadership in IT that mentioned Yahoo! a lot.
This year’s conference attracted 3600 attendees from 42 countries, as well as 162 corporate sponsors. About 1500 out of 3600 of these attendees are university students, most of whom are from top universities doing research in areas Yahoo is interested in. It was such an honor for us to be a silver sponsor, promoting our brand at a 3-day career fair and an exclusive breakfast reception. Our WIT branding was a huge success! Hundreds of students and professionals visited our booth everyday and loved our slogan ‘Code Like a Girl’. For many of them, Big Data, mobile development and web design were in the air. When we talked about the many terabytes of online data we deal with and 700 million users we can make an influence everyday, their eyes lit up. One of our recruiters from the University Recruiting team recalled “There were so many attendees who were bright-eyed and curious about our products, our brand, and our leadership. The conference gets bigger every year, and we are connecting and building relationships with students who are talented and true ‘techies’ at heart.”
72 top candidates attended our breakfast event early the second morning of the conference. One Yahoo! Sports Front-end developer showed a demo of the Fantasy Football app and encouraged this group of young women who love games not to be afraid of joining the gaming industry where 90% are male engineers. Another engineer from Information Security gave a tech talk on security issues which Yahoo! takes very seriously and invests heavily to ensure the safety of our users’ data and avoid countless attacks from hackers everyday. Students were really inspired by the speeches. A student from Duke University said “I really enjoyed hearing how their jobs have allowed them to focus on an area they are passionate about. Their enthusiasm (especially at 7 am!) was incredibly evident!”
Yahoo! is
the home to a brilliant group of women in technology, and we’re committed to growing and
supporting this community of Yahoos who play a critical role in building the
awesome personalization experience that you enjoy every day. That’s why we’re proud
to be a silver sponsor at the world's largest technical conference for
women in computing for a long time. The Grace Hopper Conference (named after a United States Navy Officer and a
pioneer and visionary in the field of computer science) draws the most talented
female technologists from all around the world.
As a
silver sponsor, we’re hosting an exclusive breakfast event on Thursday, October
4th. This will give students and professionals a chance to have personal level
interactions with tech Yahoos, understand our company better and network with
other talented women engineers. It’s an invite-only event. Please RSVP if you already
received our invitation. If not, please come by our booth and introduce
yourself to us on Wednesday, October 3rd. We still have several positions
open for excellent attendees.
We’re looking
forward to meeting all of you current or future women leaders in technology and
excited to share with you great job opportunities at Yahoo!.
For Tim Parsey, Yahoo! is the coolest start-up in the valley because the company has world changing opportunities that he cannot get elsewhere. “Here is at scale, a transformation of an icon loved and trusted in the world. We are in the process of revitalizing that icon.” As an SVP of Design, Tim strongly believed Yahoo! can pioneer products that are rooted in the humanism of the culture, appeal to people in the deepest level and contribute to society the world hasn’t seen. “It’s about innovating for people’s values and connecting to the world as a whole." People is another important factor that amazed Tim. “Yahoo has a collection of people who really care about each other, which is the most important symptom of a culture healing and becoming a powerhouse we need to be in terms of innovation."