Portland, Oregon, USA - Register now! Early bird discounts for conference registration end on March 8, 2009 for the Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing Conference. The 2009 event, the fifth in the series, will take place April 1-4, 2009 at the Portland Oregon Marriott Downtown Waterfront.
Hundreds of people have already registered for this year's conference, which has the theme of "Intellect, Initiative, Insight, and Innovation." Conference and hotel registration information is available at http://tapiaconference.org/2009/travel.html.
While the Tapia Celebration is centered on an extensive technical program, the conference also provides a supportive networking environment for under-represented groups across the broad range of computing and information technology, from science to business to the arts to infrastructure.
This year's plenary speakers include Hector Garcia-Molina, Leonard Bosack and Sandra Lerner Professor in the Departments of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, Stanford University; Ann Gates, Associate Vice President of Research, University of Texas at El Paso; Charles Isbell, Associate Dean, College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology; Jane Margolis, Senior Researcher, Institute for Democracy, Education and Access at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies; and Mario Pipkin, General Manager, Enterprise Experience Division, Microsoft Corporation.
The conference program also includes two-and-a-half days of technical presentations, a poster session, Doctoral Consortium, robotics competition, and a number of panel discussions aimed at increasing the number and success of students from underrepresented groups in all areas of computing.
About the Tapia Conference
The Tapia Celebration is organized by the Coalition to Diversify Computing (CDC), and sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in cooperation with the Computing Research Association (CRA) and the IEEE Computer Society (IEEE-CS). The CDC (http://www.cdc-computing.org/) is a joint organization of the ACM, CRA, and IEEE-CS.
The conference honors the significant contributions of Dr. Richard A. Tapia, University Professor and Maxfield-Oshman Professor in Engineering in the Department of Computational and Applied Mathematics and Director of the Center for Excellence and Equity in Education at Rice University in Houston, Texas.
The Tapia 2009 Celebration is made possible by the financial support of a number of academic, research, and business organizations at several levels, including:
--Gold Supporters: Empowering Leadership Alliance, Rice-Houston Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate
--Silver Supporters: Georgia Tech College of Computing, Google, Microsoft, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Virginia Tech University
--Bronze Supporters: Georgetown University, Harvey Mudd College, IBM Corporation, Indiana University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, University of Notre Dame, Oregon State University, Tufts University
--Contributors: Anita Borg Institute, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, National Center for Women & Information Technology, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Texas at Austin
Organizations interested in supporting the conference should write to funding@tapiaconference.org. Benefits for supporters at several levels are posted on the conference Website.
