My experience at vGHC

I was given the opportunity to attend Grace Hopper Celebration this year. Virtually!!!. I have attended GHC in the past and did not know what to expect from a virtual celebration.

vGHC was impeccably organised with opportunities to talk to recruiters and companies 1:1 or attend sponsor halls in a group setting. There were a lot of sessions and it was empowering to hear stories from woman in leadership.

I also got a chance to talk 1:1 with recruiters and leaders and understand how various teams at some of my dream organisations work. Some of the highlights for me was getting a chance to talk to StudioLabs team at Walt Disney. Being and ardent Disney fan, an opportunity to talk about the research work happening at Walt Disney and talking about how technology powered everything from Marvel, gaming, ESPN was overwhelming.

I also got a chance to talk with Data Scientists at DeepMind and understand about their work, how the projects are chosen, their interview process.

I also had a chance to attend the sponsor halls. Sponsor halls of companies like Google and Facebook had an active chat where representatives were answering questions of attendees but most of the companies had ongoing zoom calls where attendees could request to join the call and ask their questions.

Overall the virtual structure worked since it gave students flexibility to join and attend whichever talk a person was interested in. Getting a slot in the 1:1 talks was really difficult. The slots opened up at 8 am on monday and was nearly over by 8:10!!!. Though some more slots opened up as the week progressed. Except that it was a smooth and well organised event.