Join us the last weekend in April as we enjoy some social time, delicious brunch, and celebrating our graduating seniors from local universities including Collin College, SMU, UTD, and UNT!
When: Saturday, April 30, 11:00 am – 1:00 pm
Where: Jasper’s, The Shops at Legacy, 7161 Bishop Rd, Plano, TX 75024
Cost: Free to attend, food is available for individual purchase. Check out their menu here!
Please join us for our April Professional Development Meeting with guest speaker Kate Van Dellen who will speak about “Confronting Workplace Sexism.”
Dealing with workplace sexism is difficult. It’s hard to call out your manager for always asking you to take notes or hearing your suggestion repeated and accepted just because it came from someone else. This interactive session will share stories of actual recent workplace sexism and will give participants the tools to confidently confront it. We will also address the power male allies have in ending workplace sexism. The only way to change the workplace for the next generation of female engineers is to do something now.
Kate Van Dellen’s background is in Aerospace Engineering and she has worked on missile defense, cargo aircraft, business jets, helicopters, and unmanned aviation. In September 2015, she started her own company, New Trees, to provide supplemental education in math and science. She was the FY14 SWE Society Membership Committee Chair and was recently awarded the SWE Distinguished New Engineer Award. She is a blogger for the Huffington Post and was recently featured as an author in VIDA literary magazine.
When: Tuesday, April 19, 2016 6:00pm – 8:00pm
Where: Coffee House Café, 6150 Frankford Rd Dallas, TX 75252
Cost: FREE registration, food is available for purchase by the individual
Dallas SWE is currently seeking nominations for officers to serve for FY17 (July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017). There are nine positions available and self nominations are highly encouraged! The deadline for submitting a nomination is Friday, April 8th at 11:59pm. We need nominations for the following 1-year term positions: President, Executive Vice President, Vice President of Membership, Vice President of Outreach, Secretary, Section Representatives (3 positions available). Additionally, we are seeking a nomination for a 4-year term position as a Financial Advisory Committee Member. You must be a member of SWE in good standing to serve as a section officer.
Click here to view detailed position descriptions!
Please e-mail nominations and questions to dallas.swe@gmail.com.
If you follow the Society of Women Engineers on social media, the All Together blog, or in SWE Magazine, you may have read about some activities going on at headquarters concerning changes to the Society’s governance structure. SWE got a lot of questions about these activities at WE15 in Nashville and have since created a website targeted at informing you, a paid SWE member, about these changes.
We wanted to make you aware of the new Governance Update website because as members of SWE, you have some skin in this game! Read through the FAQs there and watch the videos that have been posted on the SWE YouTube channel: if you have questions about what you see, email us at dallas.swe@gmail.com or SWE HQ at governance@swe.org. Visit this page often in the coming months to see updates as SWE continues the process of determining what changes need to be made to preserve the vitality and effectiveness of our organization and transition to having a more international presence.
What will these changes mean to you as a SWE member? Well, we don’t have a lot of specifics to report at this time but if you are interested in gaining leadership experience through SWE (which we recommend to all our members!), most of the opportunities that currently exist in Region C (Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas) will be eliminated in the next 3-5 years. SWE is likely to replace some of them with different leadership positions in the new Society structure, but if you are interested in serving at the Region level, you need to sign up to do it while you still can! Visit the Region C Nomination Process website for instructions on how to submit your nomination.
At the Dallas section level, we are not aware of any changes as of yet that will affect our current Bylaws and leadership structure. We will continue to provide the same great monthly meetings, outreach programs, scholarships, and networking opportunities you enjoy now! However, getting leadership experience at the local level is a stepping stone to many leadership positions higher up in the organization, so if you see yourself heading that direction in the coming years, there’s no time like the present to volunteer for one of our committees or as one of our officers. The more folks we have on the ballot, the better! We are forming our Nominating Committee now so email us at dallas.swe@gmail.com to nominate yourself for one of our Officer or Committee Chair positions.
As always, if you have thoughts or suggestions about how we can serve you better, please don’t hesitate to email us and let us know.
Intel is hosting an event in their 2016 Professional Development & Career Series in their Plano offices on Saturday, April 23, and we are invited to participate along with local SHPE members.
View the event flyer here. View the day’s agenda here.
The IBM Global Solution Center located in Coppell, TX graciously hosted the Dallas SWE March 2016 professional meeting. The evening of March 15th started out with networking and light appetizers. Cindy O’Shea, Director of the Global Solution Center welcomed over 30 members of SWE to IBM. Cherrie Fisher, Executive Vice President of SWE Dallas facilitated the business meeting and introduced the speaker of the evening IBM Distinguished Engineer & Master Inventor Romelia Flores. Romelia’s presentation was titled Welcome to the Cognitive Era!
This discussion will review capabilities required to drive innovative cognitive applications such as cloud infrastructure, cognitive application services, natural language interpretation, cross industry partnerships and the internet of things. Ms. Flores talked about cognitive computing (systems that learn and reason from their interactions with us and from their experiences with their environment) and introduced Dallas SWE to Watson! She also encouraged attendees to mentor young people to use their unique perspectives and experiences to invent the next generation of social, business, and education tools. You can view Romelia’s presentation slides here.
Watson is a tech platform that uses natural language processing and machine learning to reveal insights from large amounts of unstructured data. In 2011, Watson was featured on the popular television show Jeopardy. Romelia recreated that event by allowing Dallas SWE members to play a simulated version of Jeopardy with “Watson.” Winners received adorable IBM bear stuffed animals!
IBM uses cognitive application services, natural language interpretation, industry partnerships and cloud computing to drive innovation across multiple industries (healthcare, communications, education, travel and many more). Thanks to IBM’s Global Solution Center, Cindy O’Shea, and Romelia Flores for their continued support of Dallas SWE.
