Ada Lovelace Day (October 13th 2020)

Ada Lovelace day is held on the second Tuesday in October and celebrates women working in STEM around the world. This year it will be purely online but you can find videos from previous years on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRRgOeJy5Pk&list=PLKLzYBTgfhxk-1zF3_XX4CidwNB4wEKBc

In 2019 the Independent wrote about the 2019 celebrations:
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/ada-lovelace-day-first-computer-programmer-forgotten-women-a8557416.html

You can find out more about the virtual 2020 Ada Lovelace day here:

https://findingada.com/events/ada-lovelace-day-live/

Race Equality Action Group looking for volunteers

A new group focussing on race equality has been formed at Queen Mary. It is currently looking for volunteers to help out with priorities including: the ethnicity pay gap, supporting career progression, reducing student attainment gaps and investigating issues with bullying and harassment. It will act as an advisory and implementation group for all aspects of race equality at QM.
If you want to know more, find out here:

http://connected.qmul.ac.uk/news/items/race-equality-at-queen-mary.html

Tata Consultancy Services launches new bursary scheme to support the next generation of computer scientists at Queen Mary

The School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at Queen Mary University of London is delighted to receive a significant donation from Tata Consultancy Services in support of 10 female Computer Science students and 10 students from low income households.

Find out more

Queen Mary University of London undergraduate students

UKRI harmonised diversity data

Earlier this summer, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) published data on diversity characteristics for the last 5 years, harmonised over its seven research councils. Quoting from UKRI:

The dataset contains data on four protected characteristics (sex, age, ethnicity, disability) for:

  • Principal Investigator (PI) and Co-Investigator grant applicants and awardees
  • Fellowship applicants and awardees
  • PhD studentship starts
For the first time, UKRI is also publishing data on award values for the different groups. In addition, it has set out to enhance its data capabilities in the future by collecting data on additional characteristics as well as through advanced forms of data analysis to better understand trends, while continuously using insights from data analysis to drive our equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) policy development.

Access the data and data narrative report here.

Spotlight on gender, COVID-19 and the SDGs: Will the pandemic derail hard-won progress on gender equality?

A recent report from UN Women, the United Nations organisation dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women, examined the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on gender equality:

This paper presents the latest evidence on the gendered impact of the pandemic, highlights potential and emerging trends, and reflects on the long-term impact of the crisis on the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Read the full article here.

ACM WomENcourage 2020

The 7th ACM celebration of women in computing is going to be virtually hosted from 24th to 27th September by ADA university in Baku, Azerbaijan. The event is aimed at bringing together women in computing from a variety of disciplines and will have talks from distinguished speakers, a hackathon, career fair and poster session, as well as workshops and tutorials. The early deadline to register is the 14th August. To register or for more details on the different activities, check the event website here: https://womencourage.acm.org/2020/

Distinguished speakers for the event, with topics including “The Promise of Big Data Analytics” and “The Artificial Intelligence: from Algorithms to Ethics”

Queen Mary launch masters conversion programme in Data Science and AI and scholarships

The School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at Queen Mary is launching a new programme in Data Science and AI in September 2020. The MSc Data Science and AI is a conversion master’s designed for motivated students who have a good first degree in a subject other than Computer Science, who wish to develop the knowledge and skills to gain employment in the Data Science and Artificial Intelligence industry. 

Funding for the programme was awarded by the UK Office for Students (OfS) as part of an Institute of Coding (IoC) consortium bid to develop new postgraduate conversion courses in AI and data science. The OfS initiative was announced in June 2020, in response to the shortage of data science and AI specialists in the UK, a concern brought to light in the UK Government’s 2017 Digital Strategy.

An important aim for this programme of work is to increase the number of people from groups currently underrepresented in the AI and data science fields, and to encourage graduates from diverse backgrounds to consider a future in these occupations.

To support students from under-represented groups to access and participate in studies at postgraduate level, Queen Mary will offer 23 scholarships over three academic years, amounting to £10,000 each to eligible students.  

Find out more

Turning words into actions: Eliminating racism and racial inequality in higher education

quoting from universitiesuk.ac.uk:

This webinar will look at how institutions can effectively respond and take action to identify and implement change, and embed this across their university. We will hear lived experiences, as well as from university leadership and practitioners working to affect change in their institutions. The session will also help to inform ongoing work and new sector guidance being coordinated by Universities UK into tackling racial harassment at universities and addressing the BAME student degree awarding gap.