Call for Contributions 2021: Lecturers with Innovative Courses are Welcome

From July to September 2021 the University of Bremen in Germany will host the 24th International Summer University for Women in Computing, the Informatica Feminale.
Course offers can be submitted until February 28, 2021.

> Call for Contributions 2021 to Informatica Feminale

Computer scientists from academia or industry and women working interdisciplinarily are cordially invited to develop and submit course offerings. Topics from the broad field of Computer Science, ICT, and Informatics (theoretical, practical, technical or applied computing) are welcome. We invite scientists, to take the summer university as a test field for new teaching formats and to get experience with highly engaged and interested participants. Additionally, a special focus program will be arranged. We also invite lecturers with course offers on career topics.
The Informatica Feminale is part of the regular course offerings of Bremen University so that teaching assignments can be given to women lecturers. We are especially looking for international lecturers. Course offerings in German and in English are welcome!

At the moment we are inviting offers for online courses to be teached from July to September 2021.
If teaching or social events will be possible physically on place at Bremen this summer, we will plan courses at Bremen University from 13th – 25th September 2021.

The women´s network Informatica Feminale is a place to exchange about technical and social developments, which we meet in our every-day life and which are designed by ourselves as technical experts.

The Summer University 2021 wants to give space and time for critical reflections and highly welcomes experimental debates on the relations of technological knowledge and developments in societies. We especially invite teaching offers, which deal with applications of technical know-how in spaces for work and life (for example within care, education, health, food, household, mobility, social networking, publicity, sports, militarization, etc.) from feminist perspectives. Submissions for courses, panels, workshops, and talks on topics such as gender, equality, technology and ethics are highly welcome.

Companies with gender sensible organizational concepts and successful personal management strategies to promote women engineers to a broad spectrum of leading positions are invited to present their best practices to the participants of Informatica Feminale. For human resources managers we are particularly pointing out that, during the whole summer school there will be plenty of opportunities to sponsor and to get in touch with graduates.

International Summer Courses for Women in Computing

For the Summer University Informatica Feminale 2021 we cordially invite women students from all types of universities and colleges as well as women professionals interested in further training from all over the world! You will experience three months of professional studies and establish a network with women having manifold backgrounds in a friendly and stimulating environment at the University of Bremen.

Every year the Informatica Feminale offers compact teachings in computing and ICT.

Entering higher education, developing a student career, transition into labour market and lifelong academic learning are equally in the field of vision. Inter/national lecturers and students meet at the Informatica Feminale in Bremen, Germany to exchange.

Since 1998 the Summer University Informatica Feminale is part of the regular course program of Bremen University and organized by the Fachbereich Mathematik und Informatik (Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science) and the Kompetenzzentrum Frauen in Naturwissenschaft und Technik der Universität Bremen (Center of Excellence Women in Science and Technology).

Funding comes predominately from the Professorinnenprogramm (joint initiatives of the German federal state and the Länder), the University of Bremen and from the Faculty.

[top]

A place for experimentation in teaching

In 1998 the University of Bremen started the first summer university for women in computing: Informatica Feminale is a place for experimentation and professional exchange, with the intention to develop and imply new impulses in Computer Science and Informatics.

The concept of Informatica Feminale was developed at Bremen University and has been transfered several times to national and international places. Informatica Feminale is organized at Bremen on a yearly basis. Every summer 200-250 students participate in some 50 courses.

[top]

Review of the Online Summer Courses 2020

Dear Participants, Lecturers, and Friends of the Summer Universities 2020,

we look back on exciting months full of new intensive experiences: The 23rd Informatica Feminale went online! From July to Oktober 2020 some 50 courses got lots of applaus from student participants nearby and far away.

The International Summer University for Women in Computer Science at Bremen University switched to flexible online teaching in 2020 and the echos of participants were enormous. More than 230 students took part in courses, and were happy about online exchange, talks and discussions.

Our thanks…
As organizing team we thank our fantastic lecturers – the new as well as the familiar – for the exciting, personal and compact teaching.

Many thanks also to all the participants for active participation, discussions, comments and criticism, networking and collegiality. A big ‘Thanks’ goes to those, who for different reasons, would never have been able to travel to Bremen; but they sent us their joy about this online opportunities. We will now think about future ways to combine online and physical teaching in Bremen.

We are MUCH aware that online teaching is not at all comparable to the common, wonderful contacts between lecturers and students we all wish for every summer university. Not to be able to see you in person, to join you during lunch break, to go to excursions or to party together was a great pity and we were missing all of this and more.

Last but not least we warmly thank our student assistants team. It was good to have you as the only students in place at the University during the summer.

Our Review
Our focus 2020 brought some unexpected topicality:

“Boundaries of the Body” 
(Women’s) Bodies are sites of technological developments. Boundaries and limits become increasingly blurred: either through the optimization of health parameters, or the digital and technical enhancement of the body, up to unregulated collection of body-related data, and the bodies suffering the consequences of technology-based warfare. The Summer University 2020 wanted to give space and time for critical reflections and welcomed experimental debates on the relations of technological knowledge and developments in societies. We saw that several online courses integrated these topics.

Our motivation is to present the topics about gender diversity and feminist perspectives on teaching and society as cross-cutting issues, to integrate these into teaching and prevent these from “staying aside” of courses in separate courses.

Our Outlook…
We are curious to read your evaluations and to receive you suggestions. These will be taken into the planning of the next summer university year 2021.

The next upcoming online period will be a good moment to improve teaching methods. But we hope that at least a short version of summer university offers at Bremen will be possible.

We invite you all to partcipate and look forward to welcoming you next summer!

Greetings from Bremen,
Henrike Illig and Veronika Oechtering