April 6th 2018

Note: see posters from both 2017 and 2018 here



In Autumn 2016, during the beginning of my final year as an undergraduate, I had heard of a BCS event: Lovelace Colloquium. This event celebrates women in computer science, tech, and other related fields. As an individual studying IT with ambitions to continue in academia, I figured that this event would be a great first conference: I would gain experience creating/presenting a poster plus see the atmosphere of a conference.

So I submitted an abstract based on my undergraduate dissertation: web design - within a few weeks it was accepted. I then began the poster creation process. My poster was mainly based on CSS: I am one of few in computer science that focuses on CSS and web design; despite not having the best talent in it, I believe it is a great skill to know. Even though there are a variety of tools web developers can use for styling their websites, I believe some tools do not always give the best flexibility as CSS: the style sheets are essentially hand made.



On the day of the event, Spring 2017, I panicked: my first conference seemed scary and with no experience in talking to others about tech or poster presenting, I avoided the event – I was extremely nervous meeting new people, plus being slightly ill with high temperature didn't help the stress (I know it's a lame excuse). I did feel quite guilty for not attending, but the idea that my poster was hung up made me feel slightly better: it was as if I attended in absence and people were still able to view my work.



Around came 2018, I am now a MSc (Masters) student studying Data Science. The Lovelace conference was open for abstracts and so I submitted another with the aim to attend this time. My poster was based on computational biology: bioinformatics, "An analysis of current software for nanopore metagenomic data".

In the summer of 2017, with my supervisor, Amanda Clare, I had researched different software on nanopore data: in biology, DNA is sequenced to produce reads which are then analysed, however nanopore technology makes these reads much longer for better analysis: and so my project was based on using various bioinformatics tools that were created for short reads to observe how well they work with longer reads, you can read more here in a previous blog post.



So my abstract was accepted and rather than creating a new poster, I used a previous one I created in October 2017 to improve/update it based on my new knowledge of the subject. The 2017 conference was held in Aberystwyth whilst this year's conference was being held in Sheffield (2018). I have only ever visited a few cities/towns in the UK so I was both excited and anxious.



Firstly, please remember to regularly update your GPS Satnav systems when traveling somewhere new as the travel from Aberystwyth to Sheffield wasn't the easiest - the travel back was even more difficult.



But to continue, I left Aberystwyth a little after 2pm and with travel expecting to be 4+ hours long, I instead arrived in Sheffield at 7pm. The social activities started at 6pm so unfortunately, I had felt I missed the treasure hunt. However, I didn’t let that stop me (almost), with some encouragement from my lovely partner and after relaxing a little, I decided to join the group a little after 8pm, where I ate some lovely food, met some people, and enjoyed a social evening in a new city! I saw Trams for the first time, I like to call them "pavement trains" - I only wish I had an excuse to travel on one.

The evening social was such a nervous experience but also such a great achievement: I'm quite a shy individual and so greeting people who were so confident and outgoing really helped me enjoy the evening. I met students from Aberdeen, Bath, and even met fellow Aberystwyth students. I sat next to a group of students play Jenga, with one participant having great skill: taking two blocks off at the same time.



Around 9:30pm, many students were tired after the long day, so we went back to the travel lodge, where I relaxed for an hour or two then slept in such a comfy bed. I set an alarm for 6am in hope I could wake early for day preparations - why did I even think I would get up at 6am? When I finally woke up (7:30am), I had a lovely bath and prepped myself, leaving the lodge at 9am.

I took a leisurely stroll, enjoying the sights of the town until I eventually reached the venue, there I got my conference sticker with my name on it. This will be a souvenir that I intend on safe-keeping - plus I got a bold set of google glasses! The conference talks were held at a lovely church lecture theatre venue, where great women gave talks about careers and their field of study.



The key-note speaker, Tanja Lichtensteiger gave an amazing presentation/talk. She spoke about her background/career plus upbringing, her difficulties of being a woman in computer science, and discussed her hobbies. She was a brilliant speaker! I very much enjoyed her talk, including the other presenters.

There were other great talks too, unfortunately I don't have any links to those who spoke but you may find them on the BCS Lovelace Twitter account. There was a wonderful panel at the end with inspiring women in tech: a great much of questions were asked with answers being well thought-out. I appreciated the effort in responses the panel members provided, they were superb insights to the different type of jobs, experience, and opinions women have in the tech industry.



The poster presentation was an amazing experience, including fun! I spoke to people about their posters, some came up to discuss mine - I don't believe there were others who focused on bioinformatics so I quite enjoyed the time talking about a brief introduction to computational biology, DNA reads, and nanopore sequencing. I met some truly great students at the event, saw well-designed poster, and gained some freebies from the different companies who came along for the networking aspect! I spoke to Amazon, Bloomberg, and more! I didn’t attend the after social for too long: I was quite tired out from the long day, I felt it was time to socially finish - I figured the car journey would be the same as traveling to Sheffield so I wanted to get an early night...little did I know the car ride ended up being around 6+ hours.



The next day, I spent around 1-2 hours browsing Sheffield, from 10am-11am, with my partner. We saw a beautiful fountain, "Peace Gardens"; walked through an urban glasshouse, "Winter Garden"; and admired the Cathedrals - see the Instagram post here. I observed that Sheffield had it's own "Walk of Fame" and explored an art gallery, "Millennium Gallery" - see Twitter post here.



I would like to thank all those who came to the event and those who set it up (Hannah Dee, Helen Miles, & more) - it was amazing!

Sheffield University has a lovely campus in such a lovely town - will hopefully visit again!

You can check the BCS Lovelace Twitter account to see the Tweets of the day - with those who attended/presented are tagged.

An album is available here, created/curated by Hannah Dee. Venue... My poster and I...

This event is a great first conference for undergraduates: you can meet fellow students who are studying similar topics or even studying very different subject areas. The wide variety of individuals who attended are such an inspiration and hard-working people - they have motivated me to become a role model/figure in my field, potentially inspiring future undergraduates, who are yet to arrive in tech.

Despite my shyness, I was able to overcome it and join in the social activities - for those who feel too shy to do something like this, you don't need to worry! People are open to talking, remember some are nervous just like I was! Ask them about where they come from, or their degree, or what they plan to do after graduating. Discuss their poster and their interests in tech. People aren't as scary as you may think, many are shy.



Finally, I’d like to recommend this event to all undergraduates!

Also, I want to recommend The Street Food Chef, in Sheffield: they do amazing spicy burritos.





Last Edited: 15:59 | 2018/04/06

tl;dr: BCS Lovelace Colloquium is amazing, I am inspired, and update your GPS Satnavs regularly.