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For the FY24 Member Appreciation event, SWE ECI hosted a candle pour event in Iowa City. Erika from Tura Lura Co led us through the science behind candle making and we all chose our own vessel and scent. It was a great opportunity to connect with other SWE members in the area and learn something new! We hope everyone enjoyed the scent they chose and learning how to make a candle!
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The new SWE-ECI Core Board had the opportunity to meet each other in person for some axe throwing at Civil Axe Throwing. The group divided up into teams of two for a fun competition. The winners and top axe throwers were Shelby & Jill! Afterward, the group went out for dinner at The Map Room. It was a great opportunity to get to know the two new members on the Core Board this year, Henal and Sarah, and continue to grow our relationships with our veteran Core Board Members! We are looking forward to a great FY and hope to see many of you in person soon!
 On Tuesday, SWE ECI combined two of our popular annual events: Welcome to the Corridor Trivia and Lunch Webinars to do a lunch time edition of trivia! The trivia consisted of 4 rounds of questions titled "I'm from Cedar Rapids," "Name that Iowa City," "swe," and "Hi, I'm new here!" Six teams competed from companies around the corridor and everyone had a lot of fun learning a bit more about Iowa and women in STEM. In the end, our virtual team of Sarah Piburn (HR Green) and Beth Westlake (IDT) won the day! Thanks to all who participated! Congratulations to our newly elected FY24 SWE-ECI Core Board!
President = Kristen Wagner Vice President = Jill Nagle Treasurer = Katie Allen Secretary = Riley Cranston Communications/Marketing Secretary = Sam Armstrong Membership Secretary = Keerthana Reddy College Outreach Chair = Shelby Baker K-12 Outreach Chair = Sarah Piburn Professional Development Chair = Henal Patel And a special shout out to our Core Board "first timers" - Sarah, Riley, and Henal! We are excited to get to know all of you as we work together this FY. SWE-ECI had a great time celebrating the end of the FY at Lion Bridge Brewing Co on Tuesday, June 6th. Thank you to the founder and owner of Lion Bridge, Quin McClain, for the fabulous technical tour of the Brewery! The group had a great time enjoying some yummy craft beer, appetizers, and networking. Lastly, we handed our Section Award for the end of the year. Congratulation to all of the winners below!
SWE-ECI hosted a book club for the first time this year. ‘Atomic Habits’ was the book chosen for reading. The book club received some great reviews from the participants. Everyone got something to learn from the book as it was very inspiring. The concept behind the book was making tiny changes in your life to yield bigger results. We discussed each chapter and how it could be used to make those changes in our life. Overall, it was a great book and discussing it made the lessons learnt memorable.   SWE ECI was able to partner with U of I SWE for a professional panel during the High School Conference. High school girls from all over the state came to campus to learn about being in the engineering fields. Our panel had representatives working at a variety of business through the corridor including P&G, Mortenson, and HR Green. We greatly appreciate the women who volunteered to be on the panel from our SWE ECI network! Please let us know if you would like to be on the panel for next year!
 On Friday, May 12th, SWE ECI gathered in 6 different conference rooms across the corridor as well as virtually to watch 2 Ted Talks about AI: where we are now and where it's going.
The first talk was by Alona Fyshe asking "Does AI Actually Understand Us?" She made some interesting comparisons between AI and human brains, specifically on how they process instructions. She talked about how AI could fool people into thinking they were interacting with a human, and perhaps if we only look at the input/output of the interaction, that is possible. However, she said "it's what's inside that counts." Her team is working to study the actual neural networks that AI forms and determine how similar that is to a human brain. The second talk was by Karen Lellouche Tordjman asking "Siri, Alexa, Google... what comes next?" She talked about the current state of AI personal assistants and how they currently mostly handle only one thing: car, health, etc. She said there are two main barriers to them becoming fully integrated across our lives: voice and breadth, but researchers are working feverishly on both. With that in mind, she painted a very interesting picture of a future with AI we couldn't live without. In our discussions, we touched on the amazing leaps AI has made so far just in our lifetimes, and wondered about how dependent not only current but future generations have become on it. What has society lost in creativity, spelling ability, or otherwise by our reliance on AI so far? But what might we have gained? Technology always brings change and a need to adapt - is this just the next step? How far is too far for computers to have access into our lives and privacy? We had some very interesting conversation and we thank everyone for attending! For this years membership appreciation event we took a class on how to build our own charcuterie boards! Allie Lanham from the HangryLady led us through how to pick cheeses, meats, veggies and fruits that compliment each other on a board. It was a great time getting to see new and familiar faces during this class as we learned how to create a rose out of salami! It was such a pleasure to host this class for members, and we hope those who joined it enjoyed the yummy treats they got to take home. We hope to see more next time! If you enjoyed this event and want more cooking or food style events dont hesitate to comment below what else youd like to do! If anyone is interested in purchasing charcuterie boards or appetizers for your next event, Allie has a spot at NewBo.  SWE-ECI ladies had a great time networking and enjoying appetizers on Thursday, March 23rd, at Parlor City. There were great conversations discussing current jobs, catching up on personal life, and so much more. President, Kristen Wagner, provided a brief overview about ECI core board roles and elections that are currently taking place. Make sure to sign up for a CB role by April 15th! Thank you to everyone that was able to stop by!
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