Women@INI News
Scholarship Finalist Invited to Googleplex
March 28, 2008 - Aditi Suhas Pendharkar, a first-year graduate student at the INI, has been selected as a Google Anita Borg Scholarship finalist, an award given to women who excel in computer science, technology and leadership. Read more.
Women@INI Recognized at Second Annual Reception
March 5, 2008 - The Information Networking Institute (INI) celebrated Women@INI (WINI) at the second annual reception honoring the student-run organization yesterday afternoon. Read the article.
 WINI Receives a Thank-You
April 25, 2007 - On Thursday, the INI honored the Woman at INI student organization (WINI) with a reception in the Danforth Lounge. During the 2006-2007 academic year, WINI assisted the INI by participating in campus events, as well as attracting, maintaining and nurturing outreach programs in the community. Among its efforts, WINI devoted time to teaching Internet safety in Pittsburgh through its work at "Tech Nights" with children in Squirrel Hill and by organizing educational programs with the Homeless Children Education Fund. Read More.
WINI toTeach Homeless Children
February 19, 2007 - This spring, the Women at INI (WINI) organization is focusing its outreach projects on an audience too often forgotten--homeless children. Read More.
 An Interview with INI Director Dena Haritos Tsamitis
November 10, 2005 - Dena Haritos Tsamitis became Director of the Information Networking Institute (INI) in 2004 after serving as Assistant Director for two years. In her time with the INI, Tsamitis has worked to create a global presence for the INI through the creation of distance-learning programs in Athens, Greece, and Kobe, Japan. Tsamitis has also spearheaded cybersecurity education and awareness initiatives as Director of Education, Training and Outreach for Carnegie Mellon CyLab.
We sat down with Tsamitis recently to find out how she got to be where she is today.
Q: What is your vision for Women@INI?
A: What makes the INI different is that we attract women who are interested in the business and policy implications of information technology and associated security issues - rather than just computer science and engineering. Our students have slightly different goals from the women in CS and ECE. We have a unique set of students - but we do want to collaborate with those other organizations.
It is a challenge to attract women to our institution. Through initiatives such as this, prospective students will see that there is a support mechanism here for female students.
Q: How did you get interested in technology?
A: I founded an ESL institute in Greece which also offered computing classes. That's where I really developed an interest in technology.
I then came back to Pittsburgh to get my bachelor's in Information Science from University of Pittsburgh. When I went back to school, so much was happening with technology. I had a strong desire to learn what this new technology out in the world was - I hadn't grown up with computers, and I didn't want to miss out on it. I wasn't as interested in becoming a programmer as I was in finding out how people interact with computers and how computers impact society.
Q: How did your career progress after getting your degree?
A: After graduating I worked as a programmer, but I didn't like it very much. I think that this is what traditionally has turned women off from technology - I couldn't stand sitting there all day writing code. I wanted more interaction with people, and I wanted to understand how what I was doing fit in with the bigger picture.
I was lucky to then get a job working with Eli Lilly as an Internet Analyst. This was when the Internet was new, and we had the first pharmaceutical web site. Eli Lilly had 30,000 employees around the world, and I helped launch the Eli Lilly intranet (this was before that word had even been coined) that helped all these employees communicate with each other.
Q: How did you get interested in distance learning?
A: I was also publishing educational materials online on the Eli Lilly site, and this is how I got into distance learning and also the international aspects of distance learning. So then I went back to school at Duquesne for my Master's in Educational Technology and Distance Learning.
I knew I wanted to do something with technology, but I didn't want technology itself to be the focus as it was in my bachelor's degree; instead I wanted to integrate technology with teaching and focus on distributed education.
Women@INI has First Meeting
September 20, 2005 - Women@INI kicked off the school year with an ice cream social on September 20. As the first meeting of Women@INI, the occasion provided INI students with the chance to get to know the organization and help in its formation.
Women@INI hopes to support INI students in their academic and professional goals and provide students with social opportunities. The faculty advisor for Women@INI, Chenxi Wang, spoke to the group of male and female students about some of the activities that the organization would be supporting. Among the proposed activities were movie nights, community projects, mock interviews, and potluck dinners.
One initiative that Wang hopes to develop is a scholarship fund to send female students to conferences, particularly the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference. Wang sees great networking potential in attending such conferences. Speaking about her recent experiences at the Executive Women in Information Security Forum, she said "When I told them there was an Information Security program at CMU, everybody in the room got excited. They all wanted to know about our program because there is a scarcity of Information Security experts."
Director of the INI, Dena Haritos Tsamitis, also spoke at the meeting, expressing her hope that Women@INI would provide an avenue for INI students to engage in community service. "You will have a great career lying ahead of you, but you can also help the less fortunate in every way you can," Tsamitis said.
At the meeting, Wang also introduced the organizational committee for Women@INI, composed of MS17 students Carrie Black and Ankri Shah.
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