Harvey Scholar Travels - Katrina in St. Louis and San Francisco

I decided to use my enrichment grant to attend several conferences, and it was an incredible decision. The three conferences I went to are: Strange Loop, Lesbians Who Tech, and Lesbians Who Tech Leadership Summit.

Strange Loop – St. Louis, MO

Strange Loop was the first conference I attended. It mostly focused on social responsibility within tech fields and the importance of creating an open and inclusive field. Yes, there were some strictly-tech talks; some of my favorites discussed U2F Authentication, Natural Language Processing, and Artificial Intelligence. But this conference was about so much more.

One talk that I went to was from the creator of http://jael.ai/. Jael is an artificial intelligence chatbot that assists victims of domestic violence by helping them out of dangerous situations, contacting shelters, and providing resources.

Another talk that I went to discussed how everyone is capable of supporting social movements with their skills. It is important to understand inequality through a technical lens, because we can then begin to model solutions to existing social and technical problems.

The closing keynote speaker was Adam Savage! He surprised the audience by speaking a lot about mental health, imposter syndrome, and the importance of taking care of yourself. He also talked about his creative process, of course. Overall, he drove home the same message as the entire rest of the conference:

Lesbians Who Tech – San Francisco, CA

I was so excited to go to California for the first time! I learned about how AI is transforming different industries, diversity and inclusion initiatives, cybersecurity, augmented reality, space travel to Mars, and so much more.

No matter what topic you are learning about, almost every conference talk contains valuable professional advice. Here are a few of my favorite tidbits!

While in San Francisco, I also took the chance to be a bit of a tourist. This was something I wish I had done more in St. Louis, so I made sure to prioritize exploration. Every day when the conference proceedings were over, I found something new to do.

My favorite adventure was to the Palace of Fine Arts.

I also saw the Golden Gate Bridge and got to hang out on a beach!

Lesbians Who Tech Leadership Summit – New York, NY

After attending LWT in San Francisco, I received an email notifying me that I could apply to attend the leadership summit. When I found out I got accepted, I immediately started planning the trip! I learned a great lesson about how fun exploring at the previous conference, so I made a list of things to do while in NY for the summit.

The first thing I did after landing was head straight to Times Square, which did not disappoint.

The next day, the summit began. I saw talks from Ingrid Nilsen, Kiran Gandhi, Kimberly Bryant, and Hillary Clinton. I spent the morning in a mentoring session, which allowed me to connect with multiple professionals in my field. And I talked to many companies about job opportunities and what they are currently working on! Overall, even though this was the shortest conference that I attended, it was a rousing success.

After the summit ended, I saw two Broadway shows (Come From Away and Chicago), the MET, Central Park, a parade, and an awesome street fest!

Overall, these experiences had a very positive impact on me, my confidence, and my professional development. I would highly recommend attending conferences to anyone looking to connect with people in their field and travel to more places in short bursts!