Never been to Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) in the USA! Don't worry AnitaB.org is bringing Hoppers to a location near you!

I had the honour of attending GHC in 2018, which was one the most outstanding experiences I've had so it was one of many firsts, going to Houston, speaking at a USA conference and being in a place that woman outnumbered men around 8 to 1 with the added bonus of getting to network with women from different corners of world.

So when the AnitaB.org London Chapter, was offered the chance to bring a one-day version of GHC to London we were excited to be part of the inaugural launch of Hoppers outside of the USA. The first Hopper to happen in Europe was the "Hopper Local/ Dublin" in February, it was hosted by Microsoft at their campus at One Microsoft Place in Dublin. I was lucky enough attend it as the AnitaB.org London Chapter Point of Contact, it was a great event, I meet a lot of great women on the day, to get a view of the event read Laura Tobin's article "Hopper Local Dublin" to really get a feel of what it was like on the day!

Attending the Dublin Hopper was only the beginning it was the start of the year of Hoppers, this was followed by Hopperx1 Seattle in March, so as March ended we moved towards setting out a plan to bring Hopperx1 to London in June.

Hosted at ETC 155 Bishopsgate during London Tech week, saw us open the doors to an inclusive and diverse group of attendees, speakers, and sponsors.

Opening the Hopperx1 London as MC for the day was Deidra Freeman - Director of Pathways, who introduced our opening keynote speakers.

Brenda Darden Wilkerson, President & CEO of AnitaB.org, an advocate for access, opportunity, and social justice for underrepresented communities in technology. She currently serves as the President and CEO of AnitaB.org, an organization that connects, inspires, and strives for greater equality for women technologists in business, academia, and government. She founded the original Computer Science for All program, building computer science classes into the curriculum for every student in the Chicago Public Schools, and serving as the inspiration for the Obama administration’s national CS4All initiatives.

Mico Yuk. Co-Founder/CEO, BI Brainz| Co-Founder of Analytics on Fire Community & Podcast |Founder, BI Dashboard Formula methodology | Author, Data Visualization for Dummies (Wiley) | BI Advisor to the Fortune 500 | Global Keynote Speaker| Named #7 Entrepreneur BI Influencer| SAP Mentor Alumni |Power BI for Business Users Leader

Wincie Wong, Head of Rose Review Implementation at RBS, uses her background at the leading edge of creative and disruptive innovation in the banking industry to break down barriers and tap the huge unrealised economic potential of female entrepreneurs by making the UK one of the best countries in the world for women to start and grow a new business as recommended in the Alison Rose Review of Female Entrepreneurship published in 2019. An international speaker and a digital evangelist, she is passionate about spearheading the growth of a more diverse technology workforce as co-founder of the NatWest Girls Can Code network and founding member of Tech She Can an organisation of 110+ corporates working together to increase the number of women in technology roles in the UK through education. A serial entrepreneur herself, she has been featured in Season 2 of BBC’s My Million Pound Menu with host Fred Siriex for her business running Burmese supper clubs around London. Having grown up in New York City, she’s spent the last 10 years across the pond in London where she is passionate about making innovation useful for customers.  

The opening keynotes Brenda, Mico, and Wincie were well received, check out the tweets on Twitter and be sure to check out the recorded session at AnitaB.org Community YouTube channel.

This was followed by our track sessions in Data Science & AI, Emerging Technologies, Open Source, and Career Development. Many of the sessions were recorded, the top sessions on the day were:

• Featured Talk: The rise of the Super Leader: Leader @Home, Leader @Work The Contradiction Era - Nicola Palmer
• Get Heard and Turn Your Ideas Into Reality - Leah Peterson
• A (brief) Past, Present, and Future of ethics in AI Technologies - Amy Boyd
• Creating Music Through Code, an introduction to Live Coding - Adiba Maduegbuna
• Featured Talk: DIY Pay Equity - Giselle Valenzuela Aldridge

The day ended with an executive panel discussion on "Inclusion drives technological advancement and innovation". Moderated by Stephanie Rodriguez - VP Policy & Engagement at AnitaB.org, closing keynotes were

Ali Heron specializes in bringing new products to market by translating business and customer needs into technical requirements. She is currently SVP and Head of Services Engineering at Two Sigma Investments, L.P. Previously, she ran teams working on HBO GO and HBO NOW. She has been an entrepreneur and consultant, and spent ten years at Microsoft, where she played engineering and product management roles in IM, audio/video streaming, peer to peer, mobile phones, and advertising for Xbox and mobile. She is an adjunct professor and entrepreneur in residence at NYU, where she works with computer science students on turning ideas into reality. Ali is an inventor on 16 patents. Ali holds an MBA from TRIUM and a BSE/MSE in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Johns Hopkins University.

Rachel Hover, starting her career in Traditional Banking by joining NatWest on the Accelerated Management Programme, instead of heading to University, Rachel Hover became one of the first Personal Account Managers involved in setting up the Primeline Telephone Banking team before joining Capital One in 2000 to help set up the Sales department. Moving quickly into roles to work with and then in Tech, heading up teams in Business Service Support, Mission Control and Business Continuity. Moving into the Cyber team in 2012 where she is now a Director responsible for Tech and Cyber Risk Management and is the UK Women in Tech Chapter Lead.

Mico Yuk. Co-Founder/CEO, BI Brainz| Co-Founder of Analytics on Fire Community & Podcast |Founder, BI Dashboard Formula methodology | Author, Data Visualization for Dummies (Wiley) | BI Advisor to the Fortune 500 | Global Keynote Speaker| Named #7 Entrepreneur BI Influencer| SAP Mentor Alumni |Power BI for Business Users Leader

Throughout the day we saw new friendships being formed!

A big thank you to our great sponsors Amazon, Avalara, Captial One, DeepMind, G-Research, JP Morgan Chase & Co., MathWorks, Palantir, Qualcomm, ThoughtWorks, Two Sigma, Visa

The day was a great success and a big thank you to the AnitaB.org London Chapter, London Hopperx1 Planning team and AnitaB.org staff.

The day may have ended but all of the Communities are here 365 days, check out the Local communities and Systers - provides a private, safe online forum for women involved in technical aspects of computing. Our members gain support by networking, sharing advice and experiences, and collaborating on various projects. We welcome women of all ages and at any stage of their studies or careers.

If you are interested to learn more about the London Chapter contact me at [email protected]