About Us - uOttawa ACM-W Student Chapter

University of Ottawa’s Association for Computing Machinery (ACM-W) Student Chapter

The School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) launched University of Ottawa’s Association for Computing Machinery (ACM-W) Student Chapter earlier in 2021 . ACM is the world’s largest organization for computing professionals with 100,000 members from more than 190 countries. Women’s section of ACM (ACM-W) supports, celebrates, and advocates internationally for the full engagement of women in all aspects of the computing field.

ACM-W ensures the significant support to women via connecting computing professionals and students either locally or internationally and thriving their technical network. ACM-W is a space where female researchers and students on computing science can be informed about research going on and become acquainted with researchers in the field. These community links and spaces of mutual support are critical to strengthen the importance of women in tech world, where they are still a minority.

uOttawa’s ACM-W is the second Student Chapter in Canada. Its creation was led by Associate Professor and Graduate Program Coordinator (ELG & Applied AI-ELG) Dr. Burak Kantarci, who is a Distinguished Speaker of ACM since 2019. uOttawa ACM-W Student Chapter aims at planning events with distinguished speaker guests, panel discussions, conferences, and even stress relief activities to encourage women in technology and to create an inspiring environment for them. The chapter is led by three Ph.D. students: Didem Cicek Simsek, Zhiyan Chen and Faria Jaheen, whose responsibilities are flexible and open to the contribution of other members.