We have been able to attract excellent keynote speakers with exciting topics. Here they come:

• Monday, 5pm
  Life on the Bleeding Edge
  Speaker: Sarah Lee -- Mother Of All Maniacs (IT Maniacs)

  "If you are not living life on the bleeding edge you are taking up too much room!" so say the Maniacs.

  ITmaniacs, New Zealand's fastest growing IT recruitment company, is focused on pure geek talent. Hear how two women with no qualifications managed to wing it in a male dominated industry enticing geeks out of the woodwork and onto our network. The war stories, the tears before bedtime, the bodice-ripper novels (by Eva Mantobed) and the good-hair days. Just how did they convince executive boards to "bring in the Maniacs"? Wonder no more about what's hot and what's not, what's in and what's out, what's jargon and what's rubbish, how to write your CV, how to capitalise on your talents before you need to use them and the well kept secret art of marketing yourself.



• Tuesday, 5pm
  Life At Google -- Organizing the World's Information and Loving It!
  Speaker: Neha Narula (Google Inc.)

  Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. This requires building huge systems for scalability, harnessing the power of data, and hiring smart people to create new applications that take advantage of both. Learn about some of our coolest projects happening around the globe, and get a personal perspective from a female software engineer at one of the most innovative companies in the industry.



• Wednesday, 5pm
  The Wednesday keynote ewill be shared: We present the student award for the best paper. Then several speakers tell about projects for girls and women in IT (focus New Zealand and Australia)
  Margaret Jefferies - Women in Computing
  Speaker: Sally Jo Cunningham University of Waikato

  Sally Jo will present the Margaret Jefferies Award for the best student paper at the CWC 2006. She will also tell about Margaret and her project "Women in Computing"

  Females in Information Technology & Telecommunications in Australia
  Speaker: Maggie Alexander FITT’s Steering Committee

  Females in Information Technology & Telecommunications (FITT) is a network of women in ICT that was started in Australia in 1989. It is still going strong and helping women in the industry. Its activities:

  • Encourage more women into the ICT industry
  • Inspire women in the industry to achieve their personal aspirations and potential
  • Assist women to broaden their understanding of the ICT industry
  • Facilitate networking opportunities
  Maggie Alexander is a founding member of FITT’s Steering Committee and she will talk about FITT and how it helps women in computing.
  Girl's Programming Contest
  Speaker: Raewyn Boersen and Margot Phillipps The presenters were the initial champions of the New Zealand Programming Contest (Raewyn Boersen) and the Young Women's Programming Contest (Margot Phillipps).

  The New Zealand Programming Contest and the Young Women's Programming Contest are both believed to be unique. The first caters for programmers with a range of skills from aspiring to experienced. There are several categories of contestant including the relatively recent addition of one for high school students. Problems are weighted according to perceived difficulty. The winner of each category is the team with the most points. Languages used to solve the problems are those generally available and used by either teaching institutions or industry. Contestants compete in 3 person teams over a five hour period and they solve mainly algorithmic problems.

  The Young Women's Programming Contest, by contrast, is only for female high school students. As the contest uses a specially written assembler-like language that may be mastered in a very short time, the contest event includes the teaching of the language as well as the competition. Young women compete in teams of two, the questions in the problem set are multi-part with a variety of points per part. These parts are incremental. Partial marks may also be allocated. The type of problems solved vary from common mathematical topics to simple business ones. This contest is no longer active.
  The focus of the presentation will be on how to expand the NZPC into more high schools and determining how to develop and reinstate the concept of the Young Women's Programming Contest.
  
  
• Thursday, 5pm
  Life at IBM
  Speaker: Moana Tehira and Lindsay Zwart (IBM New Zealand)

  ... about life at IBM and the good, the bad and the ugly of working as a women in the IT industry

  
  
• Friday, 5pm
  Her Story - IT women tell their personal story
  Speaker: Lyn Hunt (Seniour Lecturer at the University of Waikato)
  Susane Schroeter (Sun, Germany)
  Helen Jamieson (Artist, New Zealand)