If you’re a blogger and happy to write/video/podcast about one of your female technology heroes on 24th March 2009, please do join us in supporting the following fantastic initiative from Suw Charman-Anderson and sign-up to the Ada Lovelace Day Pledge:
I will publish a blog post on Tuesday 24th March about a woman in technology whom I admire but only if 1,000 other people will do the same. — Suw Charman-Anderson
While the chosen date for celebrating female technology role-models has no particular significance, Ada Lovelace (1815-1852), does, of course, as Ada was one of the world’s first computing pioneers.
Ada, the daughter of Lord Byron and Anne Milbanke, lived with Byron for only the first month of her life after which time she was raised in her mother’s household. Though unsuited temperamentally, Byron and Anne had courted and married after being attracted by one another’s intellect. Anne’s parents had, most unusually for the time, supported her education and interest in mathematics by arranging for her to be tutored by a former Cambridge professor. Ada, similarly, was very well educated, she was also a member of the Bluestockings.
One of Ada’s mentors and fellow Bluestocking, the mathematician Mary Somerville, was, with Caroline Herschel, jointly first female honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society (though women weren’t permitted fellowship until 1916), and is the woman after whom Somerville College is named. Somerville College, founded in 1879, was one of the first Oxford colleges to admit women (though women weren’t permitted Oxford university membership until 1920).
Through such friends, teachers and connections, Ada developed an interest in and communication with leading thinkers of the day including Charles Babbage. While the degree of Ada’s involvement in developing programmes for Babbage’s Difference Engine is uncertain, paths for independent recognition were largely barred to women for another century in any case, so it’s remarkable she was able to apply her mathematical ability and gain publication of notes summarising and commenting on the Difference Engine in Richard Taylor’s Scientific Memoirs Volume 3 in 1843.
Ada Lovelace was an independent pioneer in the field of computing, and an illustrative example of what gifted women might have achieved in preceding centuries given a supportive upbringing, supportive marital relationship, and a similar education to men. It will be wonderful to learn more about others’ female technology role-models on 24th March!
Further Details of the Pledge from Suw ::
Deadline to sign up by: 24th March 2009
More details
Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised. We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines. Whatever she does, whether she is a sysadmin or a tech entrepreneur, a programmer or a designer, developing software or hardware, a tech journalist or a tech consultant, we want to celebrate her achievements.
It doesn’t matter how new or old your blog is, what gender you are, what language you blog in, or what you normally blog about – everyone is invited to take part. All you need to do is sign up to this pledge and then publish your blog post any time on Tuesday 24th March 2009. If you’re going to be away that day, feel free to write your post in advance and set your blogging system to publish it that day.
We will gather as many of the posts together on the day as we can, and we’ll let you know exactly how we’re going to do that nearer the time. For ongoing updates about Ada Lovelace day, please follow us on Twitter, join our mailing list or see our blog.
http://findingada.com/
http://twitter.com/FindingAda
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/findingada
(Ada’s residence at 12 St James’s Square, St James’s, London)
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