Grace Hopper Celebration 2021
Mickey Maher2-Minute Read
UPDATED: February 27, 2024
Our Talent Brand team at Rock Central is dedicated to partnering with non-profit organizations to recruit top talent and diversify our talent pipeline. Talent Brand, Talent Acquisition and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion truly embody the ISM “We are the they” with all of our talent sponsorships. We wrapped up September 2021 by participating in a 3-day conference called the Grace Hopper Celebration.
Who Is Grace Hopper?
Grace Hopper was a computer pioneer and naval officer. She received a master’s degree in 1930 and a Ph.D. in 1934 in mathematics from Yale University. One of the first 3 modern “programmers,” Hopper is best known for her trailblazing contributions to the development of computer languages. Known as irreverent, sharp-tongued and brilliant, she enjoyed long and influential careers in both the U.S. Navy – where she became the oldest serving officer in the U.S. Armed Forces - and the private sector.
What Is Grace Hopper Celebration?
To honor Grace Hopper’s legacy and inspire future generations of women in tech, Dr. Anita Borg and Dr. Telle Whitney founded the Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) in 1994. The AnitaB.org flagship event brings the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront and highlights the contributions of women to the tech world.
The celebration results in collaborative proposals, networking and mentoring for attendees. GHC presenters are leaders in their respective fields who recognize the importance of diversity in tech. The celebration also offers professional development through a variety of activities. Today, GHC is the world’s largest gathering of women technologists, where women from around the world meet, learn and celebrate their achievements.
This year’s conference theme was “dare to…”. Many women followed that prompt with “dare to push boundaries”, “dare to change the landscape of technology”, “dare to defy expectations” and “dare to make technology inclusive”.
A look into 2020 (2021 conference data not yet available):
- 30,000 virtual attendees
- 512 speakers
- 274 networking events
- 115,834 total sponsor page views
How Does Rocket Companies Get Involved?
Rocket Companies® has been actively recruiting and participating in the Grace Hopper Celebration for more than 5 years. This year we sponsored at a Bronze Level alongside companies like Gartner, Flat Iron, GrubHub, Lyft, Tik Tok and more. With this sponsorship, we were able to send 8 team members to the conference virtually to learn from some of the best technologists.
Not only do team members attend the conference for their own professional development but we also send recruiters to find top talent. This year we hired associate software engineers and interns from the conference which directly diversifies our technology talent pipeline.
Interested in a technology role at Rocket Companies?
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Mickey Maher
Mickey Maher is a Recruitment Brand Manager on the Rock Central Talent Brand team. She works with partners and sponsorships to keep our recruitment brand top of mind both locally and nationally. She’s worked with partners in both Talent Acquisition as well as marketing. Mickey lives in Detroit with her cat Meeko and husband, Mike McDermott, who is part of Rocket Pro TPO.