We are writing to invite your Department to become a 2018 ACM Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference Academic Supporter . The Tapia Conference brings together undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, researchers, and professionals in computing from all backgrounds and ethnicities to celebrate diversity, network, gain career advice, and be inspired by great technical presentations and role models.  

Tapia 2017 was a great success, with 1200 attendees, 58% undergraduate and graduate students, and tremendous diversity of participants including:
  • 48% Women
  • 33% Black/African American
  • 18% Latinx
  • 14% Asian/Southeast Asian
  • 4% Multicultural
  • 1% Native American/Hawaiian/Pacific Islander
  • 14% People with Disabilities
Tapia 2018 is scheduled for September 19-22, 2018 in Orlando, Florida with 1300 attendees expected to attend.   

We encourage you to become a supporter of the Tapia Conference. Details about the benefits for the different supporter levels for can be found here. As an academic supporter, you will have the following unique opportunities:
  • Recruiting for graduate students and faculty.  Over 250 colleges and universities are represented at the Tapia Conference. Tapia's rigorous scholarship program and academic sponsors bring over 500 undergraduate/graduate students to the conference annually. Tapia 2017 Scholarship recipients had an average GPA of 3.6 and our 2017 Resume Database contained over 875 resumes for sponsors to review.
  • Retaining and inspiring your computer science students. Bringing students to the Tapia Conference connects them with other attendees with common backgrounds, ethnicities, disabilities, and genders to create communities that extend beyond the conference.
  • Increasing the visibility of your department with conference attendees
2018 Platinum and Gold Academic Supporters
Cornell Computing and Information Science/Cornell Tech
Georgia Tech College of Computing
Kennesaw State University
MIT Lincoln Laboratory
North Carolina State University
Rice University
Texas A&M University
University of California, Berkeley
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Michigan
University of Southern California
Virginia Tech     

To become an academic supporter complete our sign up form . If you have more questions please email Kim McLeod, CMD-IT Director of Business Development at  kmcleod@cmd-it.org .

We look forward to seeing you at Tapia 2018! 

Sincerely,         
Tao Xie
General Chair, Tapia 2018
Professor and Willet Faculty Scholar
Department of Computer Science
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 

Joel Branch
Program Chair, Tapia 2018
AI Architect
Deep Insight Solutions, Inc.