Ada Lovelace Day Blog Roundup

Lovelace was born in 1815, and is recognised as one of the first computer programmers. She wrote programs for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, along with the very first description of a computer and software.

And in fact, inspirational women in technology are everywhere. From games designers Elonka Dunin and Jane Jensen to Turing award-winners Barbara Liskov and Frances Allen to influential CTOs Mary Lou Jepsen and Padmasree Warrior, women have been making high-level careers in science and technology for a long time now.

She knows the markets, empowers the right people to talk to other right people and to their outside contacts about Yahoo and in general keeps the US aware of what the outside world is up to.

Allison Randal. She sometimes blogs on O'Reilly Radar, but not as often as we like. Allison succeeded me in four projects, and made me look bad every time!

The second is Brenda Wallace. She's also a rock-solid developer, but has taken on much of the social organising of geek events in Wellington, New Zealand.

The third is  Courtney Johnston. She works for the National Library of New Zealand. I especially appreciate liminal people, those who live at the intersection of worlds. Courtney bridges three: art, libraries, and the web.

Thanks to her, my stereotype of a ‘geek’ has never been a spotty, inarticulate male. (That’s my stereotype of ‘student’.)

Dr Laflin taught us about pre-tested and post-tested loops, Dijkstra’s theorem, and much else that I can’t remember. She also told wonderful anecdotes that made her seem wiser still, and made the world of computers seem fascinating and rewarding to the enquiring, creative mind.

I thought I would write a little about one person I learnt about when I started working for the Norwegian Navy. Her name is  Grace Hopper, also called “Amazing Grace”, who during the second world war worked for the United States Naval computing department and after the war was an important part in developing computing languages such as COBOL and promote computers as a tool to young adults.