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AVIS YATES RIVERS: How is everyone today? Did you get a good night’s sleep? I tried, but these three hours are messing with me. [laughter] I love coming west, but they mess with me. Takes a couple of days, so I’ll be good just in time to go home. Right? Welcome back to the summit everyone. I hope you enjoyed yesterday. It was fact filled, fun filled, we had an amazing time, and what about those collegiate award winners yesterday? [applause] Oh my goodness. You know, I have been a tech entrepreneur for 31 years, but I tell people I’m not a technologist, I just play one on TV. So, I understood two terms yesterday. As Pat Russo was introducing those amazing women and they were smart brah, after that I was lost. Totally whoo, lost. They were so amazing. And congratulations again to all of them. As I said, I’m Avis Yates Rivers, I’m the CEO of Technology Concepts Group International, based in Somerset, New Jersey, and a proud member of the NCWIT Board of Directors, and I am here to welcome you this morning. I’m happy to be serving as Lucy, we are joint twins at the hips and we do this a lot together, and thank you for inviting me to share your stage this morning. And I am going to be hosting your morning plenary session. And we’ve got some great things in store for you. We want to thank, again, last night’s sponsors. They were USAA, Brad Feld and Amy Batchelor. Did you enjoy the reception? [Applause] Quite good, quite good. I also want to welcome back the folks who are viewing us via live stream. It is amazing to be able to not be here, but not miss it, and we’re grateful to Swift, Jupiter Return and Johnson and Johnson for this sponsorship. Cause it enables people to view the plenary sessions even remotely. So, we’ve got lots going on today. There we are. We’ve got a morning keynote from my girlfriend in my head, Melissa Harris-Perry, some of you all know what I’m talking about. Yes. And all of our day’s activities are centered around NCWIT members in action. And in fact, many NCWIT members are involved in today’s sessions. We have a flash tank in which members will pitch ideas for NCWIT, and for NCWIT’s ideation. We have two rounds of repeating workshops, and please check your schedule and note that not all of them will repeat, and the op-ed one will take both of those hours. So if you choose to go to that one, it’s the only one that you will attend today. We have two very informative plenary speakers and of course lots of workshops, mini-plenaries and great networking opportunities for you today. So, you can keep up with all things NCWIT via the NCWIT mobile app, have you downloaded it yet? I did, yes, it’s much better than carrying around the book, I assure you. If you haven’t done it, you still can. And we do have a few awardees to celebrate before we introduce our first plenary speaker this morning. And here to help me with awards is Doctor Maggie Johnson, who I am privileged to serve on the board with. Maggie is a well-known member of our NCWIT community, almost needs no introduction, I know you all know who she is, right? Do this. Yeah. [applause] She is the Director of Education and University Relations for Google, and she oversees technical training, leadership development, university relations, and educational outreach efforts on behalf of Google. Maggie, as I’ve said, also serves on the NCWIT board with me, and prior to Google, she was a faculty member and Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University. Please join me in welcoming Maggie Johnson to the stage.
