Rolemodels
Have you ever heard someone say that programming is for men, and that women are not suited for it? Or have you just had a vague feeling that coding or tech is not an area where you would fit in or something you could be good at? Let us tell you sister, that these assumptions and feelings are common but they have no true substance at all. In fact, throughout history there has been a number of women who has played crucial parts in the development of coding and tech as we know it today. So let us enlighten you about some of the amazing women that has helped make programming and tech what it is today – look, read an be inspired!
Tip! Hold your pointer over the card to read the backside text
Ada Lovelace 1815 - 1852
Ada Lovelace was a british matemathician who wrote the first ever algorithm meant for being used by a machine – and is therefore described as the world’s first programmer. She was remarkable in many ways, not only did she create a very complex program for finding ”Bernoulli’s number” (a commonly occuring sequence of numbers in number theory) – she also understood the potential of computing and that it actually could be used for almost any area including art or music,long before this wide use was beginning to evolve.
Grace Hopper 1906 - 1992
Grace Hopper was both a computer scientist and a lieutanant in the american navy. She is one of the world’s most accomplished computer scientists, as she was part of the team at Harvard that built the worlds first computer, then participated in building the world’s first commercial computer and also invented the programming language COBOL, which is still in use. In fact,she came up with the idea of using compilations (programs that interpret text into machine code) instead of programming the computers by hand. She is also known for coining the term ”bug” and ”debugging”for solving issues inthe code.
Katherine Johnson 1919 - 2020
Katherine Johnson was a mathemathician who 1939 was accepted to West Wirginia university as one of three african-amercian students there. She later worked at NACA (now NASA) where she, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson analyzed data from plane crashes. Their advanced mathematic calucations were later used for the first manned space-missions. Katherine Johnson was so well-known her competence that the first man going in to space, John Glenn, was about to embark on his journey he asked for Katherine to maually double-check the computers calculations to make sure they were correct.
Hedy Lamarr 1914 - 2000
Hedy Lamarr was both a Hollywood actress and a scientist and inventor. She invented a communication system that was used by the Allies for winning the war. Her communication system allowed for tracking missiles under water without them being detected. She patented this technology but despite that was never compensated for the military’s use of it. Her technology also later became the basis for technologies such as WiFi, GPS and bluetooth.
Radia Perlman 1951 -
Radia Perlman is a network engineer and a software designer known as ”the mother of the internet”. She was one of few female students at MIT where she sudied her master in mathematics. She worked part time as an AI-programmer during her studies and doctorated with a thesis on networklayers protocol. She eventually went on to patent more than 100 network-related inventions, among them the STP protocol that still underpins much of the internets functionality and networking science.
Karen Spärck Jones 1935 - 2007
Karen Spärck Jones was a britith data scientist known for her work on search algorithms. She came up with a method for counting the times a phrases exists in a document, that laid the foundation for the development of search engines. She also pioneered the field of computer’s user friendliness by pursuing the idea that the computer should be programmed to understand regular text input by the rather the user having to learn to code to be able to use the computer.
You ?
What great ideas do you have that can change the way things are done? What are your strenghts and where do you thrive? If you want someone to accompany you on the journey of finding your place in the world of code - fill out the form at the bottom of our page to be matched with a mentor/sister!