Girls go geek

Ada Lovelace - the first ever computer programmer and demonstrator of geek chic

Happy Ada Lovelace Day.    Perhaps not up there with St Patrick’s day or Presidents day, but today still a day that is crucial to recognise.

Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer program, she was a fierce mathematician and had a profound understanding of engineering.   All no mean feat considering that back in 1815 most women were considered useful for little more than looking pretty and having babies.     Ada was taught maths from a young age and in 1843 she wrote a calculating programme for an analytic engine – a machine invented by Charles Babbage. 

And today, we are celebrating not only Ada’s achievements, but all those accomplishments by women working in technology and science across the globe.   The idea is that everyone takes a pledge to post a blog about a particular women or women in technology they admire and post to the same site here.  Then we have a fantastic collection of blog posts about all the amazing things women in technology achieve – a very fitting tribute.

Unfortunately there is no denying that technology and science are still very much male arenas – just attend any tech conference as proof of that.   There are a myriad of reasons for this; girls are pushed in other directions by teachers, parents and social pressure, geek still has an ‘uncool’ reputation (despite the rise and rise of ‘geek chic’) or maybe girls simply are not interested in technology and science because of the lack of good female role models.  These are all things that as a society we have the chance to change.  And this is happening, albeit slowly.  The government in the UK has had policies in place since 2004 to help encourage girls into taking science and technology modules at school, universities are seeing an increase in the number of girls taking engineering and thanks to celebrations such as today’s Ada Lovelace day, girls and women are able to see more clearly that there are role models out there. 

It was too tough for me to pick just one woman in technology to celebrate today.  There is a great roundup here and I am inclined to agree with the point made in the article that although the likes of Carly Fiorina are fantastic high achievers, this is in business rather than technology.  But I also think it’s not just about celebrating those women who have invented something, who have been the ‘first’ something or who have changed the way we live.  It’s just as much about those mums who encourage their daughters to take up maths, about those women who work in science labs up and down the country and those women who work in technology organisations around the world that just do their jobs and do them well.  A very happy Ada Lovelace day to them all.

Tagged as: Technology, women in technology