Wordcamp Ottawa 2013

Ottawa is having their very first WordCamp on April 27th and it's going to be great. You usually have to travel to Toronto or Montreal to catch one of these events and we are fortunate to have it in our backyard in a couple of weeks.

This session has 3 tracks


“Content Creators” with presentations that will help users that create content in WordPress sites.
“Site Creators” with content for those who are more experienced users, but not necessarily designers or developers.
“Code Creators” will include presentations for designers or developers about site set-up, theme design, plugin development, best practices for development, and more


They will have an unconference session on “The Role of Women in the WordPress Community”, a panel discussing “Building Your Business, Cause, or Brand using WordPress”, a pre-camp “Introduction to WordPress” and a the “Happiness Bar” where you can get one on one help with your WordPress questions.

Purchase your tickets soon, you won't be disappointed.

There and Back Again: A Journey from Engineering to Arts and Back Again

I love talking to people about the educational choices I’ve made, but I don’t love justifying these choices to ignorant people. Before I start ranting about some of the ignorance I have faced, let me tell you a bit about myself.

At the end of high school when I went to apply to university I was stumped. Most people knew what they wanted to study, so it was just a question of where? Me, I had no clue, I loved physics, calculus, and history, and had strong interests in politics, social issues, and sewing, so where did that put me? Clearly I didn’t fit neatly into either the science box or the arts box, so I applied to a variety of programs at a few different Ontario universities and, long story short, I started studying engineering at McMaster University. One week in, I knew I had made the right choice when I learned about the Engineering and Society Program, that allows you to take a significant number of electives during your engineering degree (and even a minor if you want) and includes specialized courses about how engineering relates to society. So, starting in second year I was studying Civil Engineering and Society with a minor in History and it was great—sort of.

There were parts of my undergraduate degree I loved (my society classes for example), but there were lots of things I hated (basically anything even remotely related to structural engineering). I managed to switch into the environmental stream of Civil Engineering retroactively in order to avoid taking the steel class, but still didn’t really love what I was doing. The main focus of my engineering courses was water treatment and management and after 4 years of undergrad and a yearlong internship, I was pretty sure I hated engineering, so when it came time to plan my next move, I looked for a way out.

After submitting applications to teacher’s college and Carleton’s Public Policy and Administration Program, the strangest thing happened in my final term of undergrad—I finally took an engineering class I didn’t just like, I LOVED. Transportation Planning was the first engineering class I had taken where the subject matter really made sense to me, and I felt like I could contribute to the field of study. It was a fantastic feeling—to love something you are studying. Equipped with this knowledge, but still desiring something beyond engineering (and a chance to understand the policies that often control engineering decisions) I became probably the only Public Policy Student to ever take engineering electives when I took graduate transportation planning courses during my MA here at Carleton. During my MA, I learned a lot about urban sustainability, city visioning, and other concepts that are never fleshed out in engineering, and I had a lot of time to knit while my classmates reviewed remedial math in my economics classes.

It was during the second year of my master’s that I was approached by a professor here in engineering about considering doing a PhD with him back in engineering. After some awkward conversations about my undergraduate marks (I was very close to a royal flush (where you have every possible grade) my first 3 years), I decided to go for it, and was accepted. So here I am, 4 years deep into a PhD in engineering. I’m sure some of my professors from undergrad would fall over from shock if they saw me here, and many people question the meandering path I’ve taken this far, but for the most part I am happy with my decisions. I have been to the dark side (arts), and back and the main thing it has taught me is that more people need to give it a try. My public policy classmates knew little of engineering (and one even told me to my face that because I am an engineer I must be illiterate), and many of my engineering colleagues know little about public policy and yet so much of the content of both are interconnected. Transportation, water treatment, waste management, pollution, buildings—just about every aspect of Civil Engineering is controlled by policy (not to mention affected by psychology, sociology, history, and other disciplines) and yet we all rarely take the time to study beyond our fields. Take my advice, try it out, and even if the dark side doesn’t always have cookies, they do have some different ways of thinking—which is almost as good.

     

Volunteer for Events in May

One of my favorite parts about volunteering with WISE are the great outreach activities that we organize. They are a great way to share your love of science and engineering and are a nice break away from lectures and assignments. PLUS! The school age girls that we invite are always so much fun to interact with!

In May, CU-WISE has not one but TWO great outreach activities lined up that we are going to need a lot of help with. On Saturday May 11 we will be inviting Girl Guides and Pathfinders from the Ottawa area for our second Girl Guide Engineering Badge Day and on Friday May 17 we will be hosting the CU-WISE Amazing Race! Both events will be running from 8 am to 4 pm and will be taking place at Carleton. If you want to get involved please sign up to be a volunteer below.

A Take Away From Engineers Without Borders 2013 National Conference

Dayna blogged about her experience at the conference she attended as part of the CU-WISE initiative Blog To Attend A Conference Fund. Check out our Opportunities page for more details.

As I find myself with mere months away from graduating from Civil Engineering, I find my place in Engineers Without Borders Carleton ending, but my need to maintain the social values and desire for change greater. In these last months of university I grapple with questions such as: How can I incorporate social change and interest in International Development in the workplace? What can I do when I graduate that contributes to the upward climb of diminishing poverty? How can I maintain my social values in a corporate workplace that doesn't generally think about social or responsibilities at the top of its priorities? These questions are kept at the forefront of my mind as I enter the Engineers Without Borders National Conference. This blog post is the result of my experience.

Engineers Without Borders is a non-profit organization that looks at systemic solutions to decrease and ultimately diminish poverty. EWB doesn't build schools or bore-holes for wells, and we don’t give away free shoes or T-Shirts to the poor children in Africa. Why? Because it simply doesn't work. Building things for people or giving them free things doesn't diminish poverty! When a village doesn't have access to clean water, what solution do you think will last? Building them a well or nurturing someone from the area to create their own water maintenance business that builds wells, maintains them, and trains a workforce in that can carry on the business after the owner moves on? (if you haven’t guessed, it’s the second option). Engineers Without Borders tries to look at the root causes of poverty rather than the symptoms to determine the best venture that works WITH the people in these communities rather than FOR them.

Going into the conference, being in my last year with the Carleton Chapter, I wanted to know what can I do after I graduate that will still contribute to the goals that I've learned from EWB. Many engineering companies will demolish wetlands and other ecosystems to create buildings, or have mines in impoverished countries that have no sense of social practice and exploit the locals in their labor and resources. How can I get job in civil engineering that not only doesn't go against my morals, but also makes social change a priority? Of all the sessions I went to and keynote speakers I heard, one in particular sticks out: Pamela Rogalski and her talk about the Engineering Leadership Council.

Pamela Rogalski talked about making a change in the engineering profession from the inside. She talked about nurturing today’s leaders to go into the workforce and demand change. During my time with Engineers Without Borders I learned about being a Global Engineer, but going into the workforce there are going to be rules about scope, schedules and costs. How do I work around or with these concepts to bring Global Engineering into the workforce? The Engineering Leadership Council, , is a learning community of industry leaders sharing, and discussing how to live that dream. During Pamela Rogalski’s workshop, she discussed how our employers are actually interested in hearing what we have to say and expressing ideas of how we can make the most of a social license to operate. This was the first time I’ve heard of this concept: Social License to Operate.

A Social License to Operate is when a project maintains approval from a local community. The main objective is to positively cater to the local communities in which a project develops these licenses are most commonly seen in counties outside of where the company was founded. A company must look at beliefs, perceptions and opinions held by the local community and the license is granted by the community. What’s great is that the social license is not permanent. The License must be maintained because the beliefs of the community can change as new information is attained.

Although issues may arise when regulators of civil law oversee the “license” since they view the concept as a formal permissions which they hold the right to granting the “license” over the community as a whole. The concept of the social license is greatly beneficial in working in places such as Africa and Central America. Too often in the past, Canadian mining companies have gone into developing countries, have made agreements with the government, and displeased the locals in their presence. There must be social, economical and environmental positive impacts for companies to be present in new communities and this standard should be held everywhere. In both the developing counties and our own we should be hiring local, sourcing local, boosting the economies in where a project is performed and be continually working to minimize the effects of the project on the environment. This holds us accountable to more than just our employers and public safety. A Social License to Operate holds us accountable to our local impacts beyond safety and into a positive social change and expectation. So using our power as the driving force in these companies to embrace and expand ideas such as the social license and engaging with the Engineering Leadership Council is key to seeing the social change that we want to see both in Canada and abroad.

- Dayna Peloquin

One student's experience at CUSEC 2013

SYSTEM.OUT - My Experience at CUSEC 2013

N.B. A revised version of this post can be found on my blog.

On January 17th, I attended CUSEC 2013 (Canadian University Software Engineering Conference) in Montreal. Initially, I was interested in going to hear a talk given by my friend and mentor, Gail Carmichael– not to mention the chance to meet notable people in the software industry.

Delegates, organizers, and presenters

The unofficial theme of the first day seemed to be "visualizing data." One of the speakers I was most excited about was Ben Fry, one of the co-founders of the Processing language. I've used Processing before, and Fry used several live examples of Processing programs being used to visualize information. Perhaps a description from the processing website tells it best:

"Processing is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to create images, animations, and interactions. Initially developed to serve as a software sketchbook and to teach fundamentals of computer programming within a visual context."

Me and Gail, waiting for the next talk

Continuing the theme of visualizing data, the next talk was from the San Francisco-based company Palantir. Their mission is to simplify the process of analysing large or complex data sets, by using tools to visualize it in a more human-readable way. In the hour-long software demonstration, a live demonstration of Palanir's software was used to map E. Coli outbreaks across the United States. By adding data to the map, the user was able to locate the specific meat-distribution plant that was the source of the outbreak. It should be evident that this method is both faster and potentially more accurate that other means of tracking the outbreak.

Overall, it was a great conference, and introduced me to the cool things that people are building with software. I had a great time and learned quite a bit - from the speakers, representatives from software companies, and students from other Canadian university. I hope to volunteer with planning CUSEC 2014, and would recommend the experience to other computer science or software eng students.

- Liz Allen

@liz_codes

Liz blogged about her experience at the conference she attended as part of the CU-WISE initiative Blog To Attend A Conference Fund. Check out our Opportunities page for more details.

Navigating Career Success

The Ottawa Chapter of WISE is proud to present an excellent event for young scientists and engineers that are going into the job market. The 2013 Event Series: Navigating Career Success is a discussion of four professional women who will share their advice and experiences as well as take questions from the audience to help them as they enter the job market. The event is Thursday January 17 from 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. and I highly recommend it! 

Panel Speakers:
Margaret McKay, M.Sc., LL.B., National Research Council of Canada
Josephine Davidson, Environment Canada
Mia Batchelor, Environment Canada
Michelle Illing, Ph. D., Canadian Food Inspection Agency

Date and Time: January 17, 2013; 5:30 – 7:30 PM
Location: Boardroom MC 2014, Minto Building, Carleton University Campus.
RSVP: Please RSVP to banu_ormeci@carleton.ca.
There is no admission fee!

CEMF Dillon Undergraduate Engineering Scholarship

The Canadian Engineering Memorial Foundation (CEMF) has announced a NEW!! 2013 scholarship for women in engineering. Partnering with Dillon Consulting Limited a $5,000 Dillon Undergraduate in Engineering scholarship is now open across Canada to a woman studying engineering in an accredited university program. THE DEADLINE IS THIS FEB.22, 2013. The application in English and French is on the CEMF website www.cemf.ca.