Gandhinagar: Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN) is going to host the third edition of the ACM India Grad Cohort, a pan-India virtual workshop for women in computing from July 24 to 26, 2020. The fully online event is being co-organised by the ACM-W India Council (the Association for Computing Machinery’s India Council on Women in Computing) and the discipline of Computer Science & Engineering, IIT Gandhinagar, with support from Google.

The three-day workshop intends to reach out to Indian women graduate students in the field of computing to help them through their graduate years and beyond. The workshop will have national and international women experts from the field of Computer Science & Engineering, who will guide the students in various aspects of their graduate careers such as finding a research topic, honing their reading and writing skills, achieving work-life balance, and much more.

Dr Sunita Sarawagi, Professor of Computer Science & Engineering, IIT Bombay; and Dr Meena Mahajan, Professor of Computer Science & Engineering, IMSc, Chennai; will give keynote talks on July 24 and 25, respectively. There will be presentations and interactive sessions conducted by experienced women researchers over the course of three days. The participants will also get opportunities for one-on-one networking/discussion with senior researchers, both from industry and academia. The event will also feature a film screening and a logo contest.

This edition of the workshop will have a special focus on dealing with the unusual situation we find ourselves in, amidst a global pandemic. The sessions will also have specific discussions revolving around finding balance as people work from home and adjusting to the new normal.