Letter to Attendees

Dear ACM womENcourage 2024 participant,

We are eager to welcome you to the 11th edition of the ACM womENcourage and our School of Engineering in Leganés. 

In this letter, we share some practical information, tips, and an overview of the program with you. 

First of all, the event will be held at the School of Engineering, located at Avda. Universidad 30, 28911 Leganés, and you should have already realized that the campus is not in Madrid city but in the Metropolitan Madrid area in another city called Leganés, 13 km far from Madrid downtown. Directions to get to the School of Engineering are here. Public transportation in Madrid is cheap and, in general terms, reliable, and Leganés is connected to the city through buses and trains. You can also use Uber, Cabify, Bolt and other VTC services. More information on Madrid’s transportation system can be found here, though the best way to plan your trips is using Google Maps or Moovit.

Once on campus, the event will take place in the Auditorium (Auditorio) which is the biggest building quite easy to identify. The area is in the middle of the city, so take care of your belongings. The area has no safety problems, but as in any other city, you have to be aware of pickpockets.

During the three days of the event, you will be provided with coffee breaks and lunches that are designed to serve different needs and constraints. On the first day (26th June), we will end with a musical performance in the Auditorium and a light cocktail. The gala dinner will be celebrated on the second day (27th June) in la Masía, a wonderful restaurant located at one of the entries of the biggest green park in Madrid (Casa de Campo) that is well connected by subway (Lago station). We hope we will all enjoy a wonderful time there as the area is surrounded by trees even though it is part of Madrid city. You will get instructions on how to get there once you register. We will also have a flamenco show at the restaurant so you will enjoy part of the Spanish culture.

The weather will be hot and dry, so you will be able to experience the Madrid blue sky and our Mediterranean outdoor lifestyle. We recommend bringing appropriate clothing for the heat to stay comfortable during the event. At the conference venue, there is air conditioning but you can bring your disposable water bottle to fill it in the fountains inside the campus to keep you hydrated. You can drink tap water in all the Madrid region.

If you are a student volunteer or still would like to become a volunteer, contact our volunteer chair Barbara Corsetti. 

You can check the program on our webpage. We have worked hard to prepare an exciting event with a hackathon around “AI Fair Play Hackathon: Ensuring Equity in Language Technology”, several amazing workshops, great keynotes and tech talks on very hot and relevant topics in computing, given all by top-notch researchers and companies. There are also two panels with amazing experts discussing the future skills required in ICT to deal with sustainability and ethics, and the intersection between innovation and ethics posed by AI, respectively. You should not miss the career fair on Friday, where you can discuss different career paths with our supporters. Our career fair chairs have prepared a surprise for you to encourage you to visit all the booths.  

If you are presenting a poster, remember to bring it printed to the event venue and be in the posters area at least 15 minutes before your session to get everything ready. We will provide material to fix it but not printing services. Check which session you are assigned in the posters and last-minute posters web pages. 

If you are presenting a workshop, be at the allocated room 15 minutes before to get everything set (see the program with the rooms). All the rooms have audiovisual equipment and wifi. A volunteer will be there to help you.

If you plan to share your experience on social media, please tag with #womenCourage2024, @ACMwomENcourage, and @EPS_UC3M. Thank you!

For any questions you might have do not hesitate to contact us.

We wish you safe travels, and please get ready to enjoy womENcourage 2024 and, of course, the Madrid vibes!

Paloma Diaz and Paloma Martinez

womENcourageTM 2024 chairs