Carla Viegas, Language Technologies (LTI) student under the CMU Portugal program, attended the Write/ Speak/ Code 2018 Conference , an initiative addressed to women and non-binary coders that want to take their career to the next level in a sector of activity where men still prevail.
The Write/Speak/Code Conference is on a mission to increase the visibility and leadership of women and non-binary coders through leadership, conference speaking, open source contributions, career development, personal growth, and self-care.
Carla decided to participate in this conference to meet women who code and who want to share their knowledge through writing or by giving talks: “I was very excited about meeting people who are driven to share their knowledge in a non-academic environment”.
According to her “during the conference, I met amazing women and non-binary people creating mind-blowing technologies using Code. I learned how to use my own voice and own my expertise especially as being often part of the minority as the only woman in meetings”.
When asked about tips for other women that code Carla suggests “Own your expertise. Share the knowledge that you have by writing about it online, giving talks or contributing to / starting open source projects. You are an expert on your experiences. Share the approach you took on solving problems and don’t be afraid of internet trolls (it is difficult to challenge others experiences). This will help you to solidify and showcase your knowledge which can open new paths for your career.” During this Conference “I learned about the core needs of humans which is very useful to know when you are in a managing position. The human needs are described by the BICEPS model: Belonging; Improvement/ Progress; Choice; Equality/ Fairness; Predictability; Status. By having this core needs in mind when taking managing decisions, you can avoid stressful situations for colleagues that otherwise would affect their well-being and productivity”.
Carla Viegas will now participate at the Uptake.org Data Fellows program by being a mentor for 6 months. The fellowship is designed to help data scientists in social sector organizations who are often working alone without the chance to exchange ideas with other data scientists. The program’s Kick-Off is on August 22nd in Chicago.
Additionally, the CMU Portugal program student will present her publication “Towards Independent Stress Detection: a Dependent Model using Facial Action Units” on September 5th in the International Conference on Content-Based Multimedia Indexing in La Rochelle, France.
