Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in Information Technology
 
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June 2017
Volume 7, Issue 5

Welcome to the Jun 2017 issue of the CMD-IT eNewsletter!
 
The registration for the ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference  is open and we are already well on our way to making our attendance goal. This month we're sharing our keynote speakers and our featured banquet speaker Randal Pinkett. Check out all of our inspiring speakers!  Be sure to register soon and don't forget to reserve your hotel room.

CAHSI has implemented some new initiatives to help increase the recruitment, retention and advancement of Hispanic students in CS. Learn how you can become involved.
 
To include job openings or events to our Community Calendar for the June e-newsletter contact Andrea Raines
  
Best regards,
CMD-IT Leadership   
2017 Tapia Conference
TAPIA CONFERENCE KEYNOTE SPEAKERS ANNOUNCED

Today, CMD-IT announced keynote speakers for the ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference.   Themed "Diversity: Simply Smarter," the Tapia Conference will be held September 20-23 in Atlanta Georgia.  The Tapia Conference is the premier venue to bring together students, faculty, researchers and professionals from all backgrounds and ethnicities in computing to promote and celebrate diversity in computing.  The Tapia Conference is sponsored by the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) and presented by the Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in IT (CMD-IT).

Keynote speakers at the Tapia Conference are a highly diverse group and provide both learning and inspiration to the attendees.  The 2017 Tapia Conference features the following keynote speakers:

Edward Castillo, Research Scientist, Radiation Oncology Department, Beaumont Health Research Institute, will be presenting Making a Mathematical Diagnosis: How Combining Medical Imaging with Computational Science can Improve Patient Outcomes.
Adrienne P. Felt, Google, Chrome Metrics and Usable Security Team, will present Building a Browser for Everyone
James Mickens, Associate Professor of Computer Science, Harvard University, will present Leveraging Fine-grained Data Flows in Web Applications.
Oyekunle Olukotun, Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Stanford University, will present Making Parallelism Easy: A 25 Year Odyssey.
Avani Wildani, Assistant Professor, MathCS and Neuroscience, Emory University, will present New Interfaces in Neural Computing.
 
The Tapia Conference will feature panels and workshops, birds of a feather sessions, a career fair and a Poster Reception featuring graduate and undergraduate student posters. 

Randal Pinkett
Randal Pinkett

The Tapia Celebration banquet will feature guest speaker Dr. Randal Pinkett, Founder, Chairman and CEO, BCT Partners.  Dr. Pinkett has received numerous awards for business and technology excellence including the Information Technology Senior Management Forum's Beacon Award, the National Society of Black Engineers' Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and the National Urban League's Business Excellence Award. Dr. Pinkett was the first and only African-American to receive the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship at Rutgers University. He was also the winner of NBC's hit reality television show, The Apprentice, having been selected as one of 18 candidates chosen from among 1 million applicants to compete for this opportunity.

The Tapia conference sponsors include Platinum Sponsors Cornell Computing and Information Science, Cornell Tech, Georgia Tech, Microsoft, Mozilla, Stanford Engineering, and UC Berkeley. Platinum Government Supporters include the National Science Foundation, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory.  

Gold Sponsors include Anita Borg Institute, GE Digital, GE Healthcare, IBM, Kennesaw State University, Lyft, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Northrup Grumman, Square, USC Viterbi School of Engineering, and Virginia Tech.

For more information and to register for the Tapia Conference, visit www.tapiaconference.org.  
Supporting Diversity
COLLECTIVE IMPACT 
THE FOCUS FOR CAHSI


CAHSI( Computing Alliance of Hispanic-Serving Institutions) was founded in 2004 as a  grassroots effort to increase the number of Hispanic students who pursue and complete baccalaureate and advanced degrees in the Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering (CISE) areas. The ongoing focus is the recruitment, retention and advancement of Hispanic students.

Academic, Industry and Nonprofit Institutions with a commitment to and support the core purpose of CAHSI are invited to join at either a Charter, Associate or Affiliate level.  Details can be found on CAHSI's website. Member institutions are involved in a broad range of programs in the areas of K-12, fellowships, scholarships, mentoring, student development, affinity research groups, and peer-led team learning. 

CAHSI's latest initiative is focused on increasing the collective impact of partners across different sectors including industry, nonprofits, academia and the community by bringing them together to form a common agenda, common measures, continuous communication, and reinforcing activities. Funding for this program comes from the NSF INCLUDES program, a comprehensive initiative to enhance U.S. leadership in science and engineering by broadening participation in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). NSF INCLUDES aims to improve access to STEM education and career pathways at the national scale, making them more widely inclusive to underserved populations. CAHSI INCLUDES has brought together 2-year and 4-year colleges, industry, nonprofits and local economic development organizations in three regions - the Southwest, Southern California and Northern California.  
    
Another new CAHSI initiative is focused on bringing together students and mentors through a partnership with MentorNet. This program includes students from community colleges and all CAHSI institutions. Mentors are sought from across the country. Students are matched with three mentors based on their areas of interest such as being the first person in their family to attend college, how to persist in the major, what's involved in a PhD program, or how to transition from a 2- to 4-year college. Students choose the best match and, once the mentor accepts, the mentoring relationship begins. MentorNet's program provides mentors with the tools and training needed to provide support. Weekly informational pieces provides information on various tools that can be used and prompts the mentor to reach out to their mentee. Communications can be via chat, video or emails.

"CAHSI continues to face significant challenges, and our success comes from all of our members and their engagement. Everyone is highly involved. As with any alliance, you need to figure out communication.  Our goal is to keep people connected and moving forward," said Ann Quiroz Gates, Ph.D., IEEE-CS CSDP, Director of the Cyber-ShARE Center of Excellence, The University of Texas at El Paso.

Learn more at http://cahsi.cs.utep.edu/.
In This Issue
Tapia 2017 Hotel
Tapia 2017 is being held at the Hyatt Regency Atlanta September 20-23, 2017. Discounted hotel rates are available until August 20th. Make sure to secure your room today before they sell out. Reserve your room TODAY!

Community Calendar
23 June

30 June

7-14 July

8-11 July

10-15 July

12 July

20-21 July

26-29 July

2-6 August

7-9 September

20-22 September

20-23 September

21-23 September

28 September- 1 October

04-06 October

18-22 October

18-22 October

19-21 October

24 October 

26-28 October 

28-30 October

30-31 October

1-5 November

3-5 November

3-5 November 

3-5 November 

16 November 


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