Supporting Women in Computing through Regional Conferences.

The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is an annual, international meeting designed to provide support and inspiration to women to pursue and stay in computing careers. This week-long conference provides attendees with access to many technical and non-technical presentations, nightly fun activities, many mentoring opportunities, and a plethora of industry recruiters hoping to hire talented female students and professionals. Unfortunately, the cost and length of time of the event is prohibitive for many students. Fortunately, there are many smaller versions of the celebration events at the regional level. The Indiana Celebration of Women in Computing (InWIC) began in 2004 as a way of offering the Grace Hopper Conference experience without impeding on students' desire to attend classes and reducing costs to make it affordable to larger groups of students. In the past, the venue for this event, which occurred every two years, was an inn at a state park, which provided a quiet and relaxing setting for networking, mentoring, learning, presenting, and having fun. Beginning with 2015, this regional conference will become an annual event in a more central location that is closer to an international airport to be more accessible to more students in the region as well as be more conveniently located for industry sponsors who recruit at the event. This paper and presentation will share the event's general program as well as participant feedback collected at the 2014 InWIC meeting, which demonstrate that the event has been successful in reinforcing the decision of pursuing a computing career path by young female computing students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]