Women in Computer Science

On 14th May 2019, the first event of the EEMCS Diversity and Inclusion Team (EDIT) took place with the title Women in Computer Science. The aim of this event was to celebrate the record number of female students joining Computer Science in the academic year 2018/2019 and also to launch the recently created EEMCS Diversity & Inclusion Team (EDIT) to students and employees of TU Delft.

We were honored to have with us the dean of EEMCS, John Schmitz, who introduced both the event and the EDIT by presenting numbers and statistics on gender in the faculty and outlining the importance of building an inclusive environment. After his speech, two former students shared their experiences as women studying at EEMCS and later on working in industry.

One of the former students was Valentine Mairet, who works as an ethical Hacker for KPN and is also a co-organizer of Women In Cybersecurity Amsterdam (WICCA). The second former student was Ginger Geneste, who works as a forensic scientist at the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI). Valentine and Ginger gave an interesting joint presentation, which was very interactive with the audience. They had a highly important message to share. They encouraged female students in computer science to be brave and embrace their diversity, because even if female students are a minority, they argued that standing out gives you the power to really make a difference in the community. Like an outlier in statistics theory, not falling in the average pattern allows you to have a much bigger impact on the trend!

We would like to thank the speakers for their input to the discussion and everyone for attending this EEMCS Diversity Lunch.

Hope to see you soon at our next event :)