| Communications and Development |  |
Published by Communications and Development
Canterbury student Janina Voigt has won a prestigious undergraduate Google Anita Borg Scholarship.
Google received applications from women at 28 universities throughout Australia and New Zealand and, in a coup, New Zealanders have taken both Australasian scholarships with Andrea Schweer, from the University of Waikato wining the other A$5000 award.
“It’s a really good scholarship to win as it is not just about the money. It has enabled me to meet and make contact with other girls in computing and technology and that’s been great as we are under-represented.”
As part of the scholarship Janinia travelled last month to the annual Google Australia & New Zealand Anita Borg Scholars’ Retreat in Sydney and will go to the Grace Hopper Conference in the United States next year.
“Google is such an amazing company — I never would have envisaged that I’d be involved with them, or with computing really.”
Janina only stumbled across computer science when her boyfriend decided to teach her some programming. She enjoyed it so much that she started to learn Java from a library book and continued on to enrol in computer science
at UC.
“Probably my perception of computer science was that it was for boys and that it wouldn’t be that interesting. That is why this scholarship is so great.”
The Google Anita Borg Scholarship was initiated in association with the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology to honour the legacy of Anita Borg and her efforts to encourage women to pursue careers in computer science and technology.
“I truly believe that women have something to add (in computer science),” said Janina. “We are usually better at organising, communicating and managing a project, which are all necessary in the field. Google are doing a great job at marketing themselves and the fact that computing can be an exciting and colourful career, especially for girls.”
About to undertake her honours year next year, Janina is already planning her project in an area that interests her, measuring and improving computer software design. She wants to develop a system that can measure whether the design of a program is good or bad.
“I want to see what makes a design good or bad. I’m interested in that aspect as it is such an important part in the aspect of a program. A good design is a way of helping people."
For further information please contact:
Jane Lucas
Communications Officer
University of Canterbury
Ph: (03) 364 2987 ext 6072
jane.lucas@canterbury.ac.nz