Benefits to Supporting the WINS Program
The Women in IT Networking at SC (WINS) program works to address the vast gender gap that
exists in the IT workforce, with a particular focus on network engineering.
The program annually funds 3-6 highly qualified women engineers, selected from a competitive
application process, to join the SC Conference SCinet volunteer team. WINS also supports
women to attend other professional development activities including attending and presenting at
regional and national conferences, professional leadership and mentoring training, and returning
to participate in SCinet.
SCinet comprises 175+ of the world’s top network and computer systems engineers sharing
their time and expertise representing universities, government research institutions, and tech
companies.SCinet annually builds a sophisticated global multi-terabit network engineered from
the ground-up to support exhibitor’s data-intensive live demos that are the hallmark of the
conference.
Integrated into one of fifteen SCinet teams and paired with a mentor, WINS awardees are
deeply immersed in a 6-9 month intense engineering planning experience before the conference
begins and then in a live Network Operations Center during the SC conference while SCinet is
built and operated live on site.
WINS strives to have diverse representation of organizations and applicant backgrounds in the
cohort each year. When WINS was created in 2015, less than 14% of SCinet volunteers were
women. Since then this number has tripled.
With the hands-on engineering training and mentoring, WINS has contributed to new
management roles and job promotions. A recent survey indicated that nearly 50% of WINS
alumni have advanced in their careers and with greater decision-making responsibility.
Supporting WINS
When any company or organization supports WINS, direct benefits of their contribution can take
several forms, including:
Product Benefits - Show off your gear!
As part of their immersive engineering experience, WINS participants work directly with
contributors’ equipment or software to plan, build and operate a live network service.
● Participants develop in-depth working knowledge of the systems they support for the
conference and how they operate at peak. Armed with this intense hands-on
engineering experience, WINS participants bring unique insights and influence to future
service procurement to their home institutions.
● SCinet team leads may schedule contributor presentations with WINS participants to
provide a better understanding of contributor products and how they fit into the overall
SCinet architecture and network service delivery to conference exhibitors representing
the largest, most innovative multinational computing and networking companies.
Professional Engagement - Make Connections!
WINS participants regularly network via SCinet with contributor engineers and principals to build
strong relationships.
● These relationships hold the potential for future business opportunities especially as
WINS participants ascend into decision-making roles in their careers.
● When considering job recruitment opportunities, contributors have an opportunity to
engage with a diverse set of highly-qualified talented engineers in one of the most
rigorous hands-on working environments.
● WINS can review contributor position descriptions, offering possible suggestions for how
to make them more compelling to women and underrepresented minorities.
Contributor Visibility - Be Recognized!
Recognition can take many forms which can include but is not limited to:
● Prominent visibility on the WINS contributor page.
●Contributors are mentioned in WINS presentations delivered at conferences and
meetings.
●Recognition appears on certain WINS printed materials.
●Brand recognition increases not only from using products at SCinet, but from any
contributor-supported “swag” or hosted events.
●“WINS Contributor” badges will be provided to display in SC booths.
●The WINS participation panel on the SCinet NOC will display contributor logos.
● When appropriate, direct WINS contributions are added to the SC’s Conference’s formal
“SCinet recognition”, where appropriate, which may improve the contributors’ overall
SCinet contributor status with the conference.
We are happy to discuss other suggestions for appropriate recognition for your generous
support.
