On Women’s Day 2024, we decided to salute women who had a significant contribution to the development of technology and their names are not that known. This is, of course, a very partial list created by ‘Women in Tech’ UK:
1. Ada Lovelace (1815-1852)
Ada is referred to as the first programmer because she had written notes that explained how the notion of a specific engine could transition calculation to computation.
Every second Tuesday in October is known as Ada Lovelace Day to celebrate the achievements of women in STEM careers.
2. Grace Hopper (1906-1992)
Grace served at the Naval Reserve where she joined the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corp. She designed a compiler that translated programmer’s instructions into computer codes, and her division developed the first English language data. She also helped standardize the Navy’s computer languages.
3. Mary Keller (1913-1985)
Mary is known as one of the famous women in technology for being the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in computer science.
4. Katherine Johnson (1918-2020)
atherine is well known for this event and is one of the famous women in technology for co-authoring 26 research reports that provide mathematic equations for machines. She is one of the heroes of “Hidden Figures” from 2016 – a book written by Margot Lee Shetterly and the movie, with the same name, based on it. Both the book and the movie are warmly recommended.
5. Elizabeth Feinler (1931-)
Elizabeth is well known for helping the Stanford Research Institute transition to the domain name system and introducing the domain name protocol, she’s the one to thank for the dot coms, dot nets, and dot govs used daily.
6. Annie Easley (1933-2011)
Annie Easley worked at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). She was one of four African Americans who worked there and developed and implemented code which led to the development of the batteries used in hybrid cars. She is well known for encouraging women and people of her color to study and enter STEM fields.
7. Karen Sparck Jones (1935-2007)
She is well known for working on information retrieval (IR) and introducing the IDF term to produce natural language for the search engines that we use daily.
8. Mary Wilkes (1937-)
she worked with computers such as the IBM 709 and IBM 704In 1961 she joined the digital computer group and contributed to the LNC development of TX-2, as she designed and wrote the operators manual for the final console design. She is known for helping develop the first personal computer and was also the first person to have a PC in her home.
9. Adele Goldberg (1945-)
Adele Goldberg is known for inspiring Steve Jobs’s creation of the first Apple computer as, without her, the Apple desktop environment may not look the way it does today.
10. Radia Perlman (1951-)
Radia is known as the ‘mother of the internet’ and for creating STP which is fundamental for the operation of network bridges.
The gender gap is mentioned quite often, something it feels there is no need to keep talking about the subject, however, in the UK just 19% of those working in technology are female, in the USA 27%, 32% in the EU. According to the Israeli Innovation Authority report in Israel, 35% of the high-tech workforce are female. When we let the numbers talk it is very clear the gap has not yet closed.