Finding Ada: Celebrating the achievements of women in technology and science
Last night I attended the Sheffield Geek Up -highly recommended for any of you Sheffield Tech people. The Geek Ups in Sheffield happen on the first Wednesday of every month at the Showroom. The events are “a grassroots knowledge sharing and networking social for folks involved or interested in the web and technology industry”. I’ve been to quite a few now and they never fail to inspire.
In the intro section, the lovely Saul Cozens (Technical Director at TechnoPhobia) told us about “Ada Lovelace Day” which is an international day of blogging to celebrate the achievements of women in technology and science. The event will take place on 24th March 2010 and Saul encouraged us all to pledge to write a post about our tech heroines. Apparently last year nearly 2,000 people took part. This year they want 3,072 people to join in.
According to Wikipedia, “Ada Lovelace was was the only legitimate child of the poet Lord Byron and his wife Anne Isabella Milbanke. She is chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage’s early mechanical general-purpose computer, the analytical engine. Her notes on the engine include what is recognized as the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine; as such she is often regarded as the world’s first computer programmer.”
The event was originally organised by Suw Charman-Anderson after hearing female friends in technology say that they felt disempowered and invisible. On her blog Suw quotes a study from Psychologist Penelope Lockwood who discovered that (like many “minorities”) women need to see female role models more than men need to see male ones. Suw created the event to combat this so that we can “create new role models and make sure that whenever the question “Who are the leading women in tech?” is asked, that we all have a list of candidates on the tips of our tongues.”
Technophobia have created a beautiful Ada Lovelace Day pledge site where you can sign up and pledge to write a blog post on the day, all posts will then appear on the site. There’s also a Facebook group and Twitter account where you can keep up with Ada Lovelace day news.
I have signed up and pledged to write a post. I have a few ideas but any suggestions for my subject are most welcome…or why not sign up and pledge yourself?
