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EMEA Scholars’ Retreat sparks friendship and collaboration
July 13, 2012
Introduction: From June 18th - 20th, Google Zurich welcomed 90 of the brightest computer science students from universities across Europe, the Middle East and Africa for our annual EMEA Scholars’ Retreat. Scholars and Finalists of the Google Europe Scholarship for Students with Disabilities, Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship and the Google Zawadi Africa Scholarship descended on the office for three jam-packed days of workshops, technical talks, a poster session, career panels and lots of networking opportunities.
We recently sat down with one of this year’s scholars, Clara Bayarri, who has attended the retreat twice, last year as a finalist and this year as a scholar.
Welcome back to Google, Clara. Tell us about your experience at the Google Scholars' Retreat in 2011.
Last year my co-workers encouraged me to apply for the
Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship
. I was incredibly surprised when I found out I was a finalist! The 2011 Scholars’ Retreat was an incredible experience that allowed me to meet people from all over EMEA and, on a personal level, helped my self-confidence grow. Prior to the retreat, I wouldn’t have imagined the possibility of working at Google. Those three days opened my eyes to many possibilities.
Clara (right) and Luz hanging out
at Scholars' Retreat
It sounds like you’ve met a lot of computer science students in EMEA. How beneficial did you find this? Did you make any new connections?
You meet so many people from so many countries studying and working in areas very similar to your own. At the 2011 retreat, I was lucky in that I shared a room with another Spanish girl, Luz Rello who lives in the same city as me. She’s a PhD at one university, and I’m an undergraduate at another. We connected on a personal level from the moment we met and have become great friends. Even after the retreat we continue to see each other for coffee, and this spring we decided to start collaborating.
Tell us a bit more about your collaboration.
One day over coffee, Luz and I discovered an area where we could collaborate together. Her PhD focuses on how technologies can help people with dyslexia and I had a few months of experience in mobile application development. Together, we came up with the idea to develop a mobile game for children with dyslexia. Luz designed the exercises to be included from observations and studies related to her PhD, and I developed the application, which we named
Dyseggxia
. It’s been released for free and you can check it out
here
.
At this year's Scholars' Retreat, what was the highlight for you?
This year I was much more relaxed during the retreat and enjoyed the time with all the other students. I especially had a lot of fun with the User Experience Design workshop, as we got the chance to act as User Experience designers and work on an invented new product as a team of students.
So, what are the next steps for you?
Actually, I’ve just started as a Software Engineering Intern at the Google London office. I’m really looking forward to the next three months. After that, I will go back home to graduate from my Bachelor's and then hope to continue studying somewhere else. And, thanks to my experience with Luz, I have become very interested in Natural Language Processing as well as Interface Design and Usability/Accessibility, so I will probably try to continue down one (or all) of these paths :)
To find out more about programs and opportunities at Google take a look at
www.google.com/students
.
Posted by Jenny McColl, University Programs Specialist
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