When you think of computers and programming….
Do you automatically picture a bunch of nerds?
What if we told you the first computer programmer
was a woman?
Ada was a brilliant mathematician. One day
she met a grumpy old mathematician named Charles
Babbage. Charles showed Ada a machine he had
invented. This machine could automatically
perform additions and subtractions. Ada was
very excited and asked question such as:
“What if we build a machine that could make
more complicated calculations?” and “What
if this machine could play music and show
letters as well as numbers?”. Actually, she
was describing a computer and thus, she was
far ahead of her time. In 1842 she also wrote
the first algorithm on paper, and therefore she
is known as the first programmer in history.
Did you know that there are more of these
great women that contributed to the history
of Computer Science - important pioneers in
CS were not just men!
In the third chapter of this MOOC you will
hear about ENIAC - the first all-electronic
digital computer.
But have you ever heard of Kathy Kleiman,
Jean Bartik, Marlyn Meltzer, Kay Antonelli,
and Betty Holberton? Two men decided to build
a machine that could carry out calculations
but these women actually programmed the ENIAC
(1945 - 1946 University of Pennsylvania).
How did you communicate with computers before
programming languages were invented? 0 - 1
? Who is credited with the idea that computer
code could be written and read like a language?
It was:
Grace Hopper. During her time at the Navy, she worked with
“Mark” - a computer that filled the entire
room. Her accomplishments include creating
the first compiler and she contributed to
the programming language COBOL, which is still
the standard of data processing today.
Surprisingly in the 60ties and 80ties, programming
was considered to be for women. Men built
computers and were concerned with the hardware.
Software development was something for secretaries,
considered to be “women’s work” and
was one of the 3 top jobs in the US (beside
school teacher and librarian). At the time
of 1960- 1985 the number of women pursuing
computer science worldwide increased to 37%.
But what happened then? The legend says:
Men pushed women out!
And where are we today? Today around the world
only 18 % of the tech jobs are held by women!
The gender distribution at the TU Graz shows
inequality as well. Among students, women
are in minority (78% are men) and among the
graduates almost 80% are male.
What does this mean for our future?
Our future will largely be digital and digital
innovation is by no means complete. Not involving
women creates a situation in which improvements,
projects, and research are largely done without
their participation. Moreover, this means
that they are not part of important decisions
being made in the world of tech today and
that funding will not be awarded to develop
their ideas and concepts.
Everybody has to understand that this is not
a “women’s issue”, it is a “people’s
issue”. It should be in our all interest
to encourage more women to develop the world
of tomorrow.
BE PART OF IT :)
These women have paved the way:
