“Engineer the Future, Sharpen your Competitive Edge” was the theme of this year’s WIE Professional Development Seminar held in White Plains, NY on September 25-27, 2009. I had the privilege of attending Friday night opened with an introduction from the conference organizer, Darlene Rivera, and a discussion on WIE from Karen Panetta, WIE Committee Chair. Karen’s talk focused on the perception of women in engineering and how she is working to change that through her Nerd Girls program at Tufts University. She also spoke about activities to encourage women in engineering around the world in different WIE groups. Friday evening continued with a discussion on Google’s technologies and Work/Life Balance by their NY R&D director Corinna Cortes. She discussed upcoming technologies, and new Google features including Google Trends, which allows you to show search patterns. For example, Corinna showed how the flu can be predicted by the about of searches for flu and similar phrases. Friday evening concluded with networking over a chocolate, wine and cheese.

Region 1 GOLD hosted white water rafting on the Deerfield River and a number of folks from NH WIE-GOLD attended. It was a rainy and dreary day, so most folks rented wet suits or got some really warm clothing. The trip was terrific, with groups of IEEE’ers rafting down class I, II, and III rapids. The highlight of the day was an area called Zoar Gap, which required some skill to navigate successfully. No IEEE folks went in the water thanks to our guides good instructions. The day ended with a barbeque back at the base camp. We enjoyed the warm drinks and conversation before we departed. Photos can be seen here, including pictures from the nearby town where a few of us stayed the night before.

The group Jen volunteers for a lot, MooreMart, is collecting holiday stockings for shipment to teh troops overseas. See the Flyer details below.

WHAT: 12-14” red furry or fuzzy stockings (usually available at CVS, Dollar Stores, and the Christmas Tree Shop). Filled with gifts and food items.(see lists below)

WHEN: Thursday or Friday, November 19th or 20th from 3 pm – 7 pm

WHERE: Nashua High School – North. 10 Chuck Druding Drive, Nashua NH 03063 in the school Auditorium.

WHY: Because we care!

I wrote up the whole story of my 2009 autocrossing season for those interested in the tale of tragedy and woe and some good racing fun:
-N