Hi, my name is Marta and I'm a PhD student
and entrepreneur. Of course over the years
there have been a number of women that I came
across or met who have been extremely inspiring
but most recently one of the women who inspired
me the most is Dame Stephanie Shirley. Back
in the 1960s she started back then the first
all-female programming company where women
were able to work in flexible working arrangements,
they were able to work from home fitting family
lives around and have more flexible careers.
It was also one of the first of what we now
would call 'social enterprise' and the employees
co-owned the company. But it's not only this,
it's not only the fact that some of what the
company did was for example to program the
black box for Concorde, but what really inspires
me the most about Stephanie Shirley is the
perseverance with which she built her career,
she built the business back then in an all
male-dominated profession. I find that really
inspiring, to see what she did and how hard
she fought for her company, for her ideals.
She even went as far as changing her name
from Stephanie to Steve to be able to compete
and to fight in this arena. I find this extremely
inspiring and really I think this is a good
example for all us women in technology.
