I’ve written about Ada Lovelace in a book I wrote 12 years ago on the Internet for Girls. (never published, unfortunately, and sadly out of date now….). I also have a friend who named his daughter Ada after Ada Lovelace. We don’t often remember the women who were important to technological and scientific developments, and this is sad since so many young girls are still discouraged from entering scientific and technical fields. So, even if you don’t know about Ada Lovelace, consider finding out about her and posting a blog post today! Do it for a girl you know who just might want to consider a career in science, math, engineering or technology!
“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 (contact)
Deadline to sign up by: 24th March 2009
376 people have signed up, 624 more needed
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://groups.yahoo.com/group/findingada
Who was Ada?
Ada Lovelace was one of the world’s first computer programmers, and one of the first people to see computers as more than just a machine for doing sums. She wrote programmes for Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, a general-purpose computing machine, despite the fact that it was never built. She also wrote the very first description of a computer and of software.
Ada Lovelace Day at The Science Museum
As you may know, The Science Museum has a reconstruction of
Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine on display, which is worth
a visit on its own. But on 24th March the museum is putting on
a special treat: Ada herself will be will be walking the floors
throughout the museum, telling her story.
Visit http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/ for more information,
especially on the day as an article about Ada by Tilly Blyth,
the computing curator, will be featured on the front page.
Computer Weekly is featuring Ada Lovelace Day in the magazine, and
will be blogging as well. So take a look if you see it on the
news stands, or visit their website and the WITsend blog:
http://www.computerweekly.com/
Ada Lovelace Day on Flickr
2 Responses
Humm, will have to think about this. Is this limited only to computer technology or can it be women in any scientific or technical field?
[…] […]