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2019 Keynote Speakers

lenore blum

Keynote Speaker

Lenore Blum (PhD, MIT) is Distinguished Career Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) where she is also Dean’s Professor in Technology Entrepreneurship, Faculty Director of the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship and Founding Director of Project Olympus, a proof-of-concept innovation center she founded in 2007. Since 2007, over half the Carnegie Mellon start-ups have come through Project Olympus. Olympus is a good example of Lenore Blum’s determination to make a real difference in the academic community and the world beyond.

Lenore’s research, from her early work in model theory and differential fields (logic and algebra) to her work in developing a theory of computation and complexity over continuous domains (mathematics and computer science), has focused on merging seemingly unrelated areas. She has given many invited talks at international conferences including a plenary talk on “Towards a Conscious AI: A Computer Architecture Inspired by Cognitive Neuroscience” at Microsoft Research Asia’s 20^th Anniversary Celebration in Beijing.

Lenore is internationally recognized for her work in increasing the participation of girls and women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) fields. She was founding co-Director of the Math/Science Network and its Expanding Your Horizons conferences and the Women@SCS program at CMU.

sue

Keynote Speaker

Dr. Sue Black is a computer scientist and self-professed evangelist for computing. She is the recipient of numerous awards including being appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for her services to technology, and from the USA she received the Anita Borg Social Impact Abie Award for making a positive impact on women, technology, and society.

Dr. Black is a leader for gender parity in computing in the United Kingdom. Among her many efforts she started #techmums, a program that offers mothers free training workshops in digital security, social media, and programming with the aim of building confidence and expanding opportunities for women with litle exposure to computing. She is also founder of the British Computer Society’s Specialist Group BCSWomen.

Dr. Black is perhaps most well-known for initiating -- and succeeding -- in Saving Bletchley Park, the site of world war 11 codebreaking. Her book, and her work at Bletchlely Park included the oral history project conducted to capture the memories of the women who worked there. She is the subject of numerous radio and television shows, press articles, and YouTube videos. Dr. Black tempers her optimism for the future of women in computing but notes “if we don’t have women involved, if we don’t have diversity at the heart of what we’re doing, I think we’re creating a world which is not a world that I want to see.”