Winners of IBM Case Study Competition

Congratulations to everyone who placed in the IBM Extreme Blue Case Study competition held in January!

1st place
Team 9

• Sonia Riahi, Engineering Management (grad), University of Ottawa
  
• Laurence Smith, Computer Engineering (grad), Carleton University
  
• Ramya Ramamoorthy, Computer Engineering (grad), Carleton University
  
• Kaveh Shahbaz, Computer Science (grad), Carleton University
  

2nd place
Team 5

• Raghad Al-Awwad, Computer Science (grad), Carleton University
  
• Abbas Javadtalab, Computer Engineering (grad), University of Ottawa
  
• Jeff MacDonald, MBA, Carleton University
  
• Stefan Valianu, Computer Science (undergrad), Carleton University
  

3rd place
Team 1

• Adi Alsmadi, Engineering Management (grad), University of Ottawa
  
• Kavita Tiwari, Computer Engineering (grad), Carleton University
  
• Laura Mutu, Engineering (undergrad), Carleton University
  
• Nashwin Martis, MBA, University of Ottawa
  

Networking is Key

From my personal blog:

Time and time again I find that networking truly is the key to a successful career. It's amazing what kind of opportunities arise because of who you know.

During my undergrad years, I never thought that getting a job would have so much to do with your network. Whether you know someone who works at a place you want to be hired, or just introduce yourself at a job fair, your chances of working there are so much higher. For example, my husband has always been hired through his network. In fact, when he got laid off, his contacts on LinkedIn noticed, and asked him to work with them right away. He's still there now.

Read the rest to find out more on why networking is key.

Celebrating Our Accomplishments

Something we need to do more as women in science and engineering is celebrate our accomplishments. This isn't to boost our egos, but rather to show younger girls that there are successful women like us embarking on a career in science and engineering!

I'd love to see my fellow CU-WISE members blog about their accomplishments. I'll get us started with two recent ones of my own.

First, my blog, The Female Perspective of Computer Science, has been added to the Communications of ACM Blogroll. I've been writing this blog for more than two years, and because I've kept up with it (writing about 8 times per month), it's been getting me a lot of attention. Someone out there who had a say about the ACM blogs must have been reading it, as I got invited to join out of the blue. ACM is the Association for Computing Machinery, and is the society for computer scientists (much like IEEE is the big one for engineers).

Second, I have been included in a recent article on 5 Women Tech Leaders You Should Follow on Twitter. I've only been on Twitter for a few months or so, but the value of tweeting professionally is already coming to light. From the article:

5. The Emerging Leader
@gailcarmichael
One to watch! Gail Carmichael is a PhD student in Computer Science at Carleton University, focusing on educational entertainment and augmented reality. She has a passion for encouraging girls to enjoy computer science. Carmichael blogs on The Female Perspective of Computer Science.

Want to share your accomplishments but don't blog here? Send me a link to your own blog, or comment here. It's ok if you aren't a CU-WISE member. I can include your stories in a future blog post!

Photos from the IBM Extreme Blue Case Study Competition

I've uploaded the photos from the IBM Extreme Blue Case Study Competition on Saturday. I haven't had a chance to caption them yet, but you can take a look now anyhow!

IBM Extreme Blue Case Study Competition
by Terriko.