Women in Technology
This is a man’s world… But it would be nothing, without a woman or a girl! That are the lyrics that make me think of Internet Technologies. Seems the market is dominated with brilliant male programmers, inventors and VR builders, but there are a lot of women throughout history that made computer technologies become what they are today. Without them, software products or space travels would be, just as the song goes on, nothing.
Ada Lovelace
XIX century mathematician and a poet, daughter of the famous Lord Byron, that invented the first computer program ever. Due to her times, Ada Lovelace hand wrote a diagram, that contained an algorithm to calculate Bernoulli numbers. She is said to be the first programmer in history, as her work included not only program-writing but a heavy interest in computer prototypes such as Analytical Engine by hardware pioneer Charles Babbage. She has died at age 36 of cancer, but you can find programming languages referring to her work.
Grace Hopper
United States Navy Rear Admiral, one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer in 1944. She has invented the first compiler for a computer programming language, and she has designed one of the first programming language — COBOL. Grace was not only an IT Navy specialist but pioneer of coding, software development and some say that even machine-learning. “Amazing Grace” as they call her, died at age of 85 in US.
Radia Perlman
Radia can be found on the technology hall of fame, as “The mother of internet”. This MIT student and later software designer & network engineer, has designed spanning-tree protocol (STP) which made building massive networks possible. Creating a network of layer-2 bridges is fundamental for today’s internet development. She has also contributed to other network design, like link-state protocols, including TRILL, which she designed to correct some STP protocol shortcomings.
Marissa Mayer
Symbolic systems & computer science graduate, that became Google’s employee no. 20 back in 1999. The early search offerings and codes were designed by her, and energy and knowledge made her Vice President of Search Products and User Experience in 2005. Google products & platforms as we know them now (from Google Maps to Google AdWords) can be contributed to Marissa’s work. Nowadays Mayer is a President & CEO of Yahoo!
Katherine Johnson
She has been in space science even before NASA was NASA. This american physicist and mathematician, has made enormous contributions to the aeronautics and space programs with the early application of digital electronic computers. She has calculated the trajectories, launched windows and emergency back-up return paths from Project Mercury flights, including the early missions of John Glenn, Alan Shepard, Apollo 11 flight to the Moon and continued work through the Space Shuttle program and on early plans for the Mission to Mars.
Sheryl Sandberg
Forbes no. 7 most powerful woman, dealing with IT on regular basis as a COO of Facebook. Before that, Sheryl was a chief of staff for United States Secretary of the Treasury Lawrence Summers and Vice President of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google. She has made Facebook profitable, designed the advertising profile of Social Media as we have them today.
Susan Wojcicki
Google was invented in her garage. In 1999 Susan became Google’s first marketing manager, working for Intel’s marketing team just before that. She has not only worked on making visual changes in Google but also designed AdSence — now said to be the most profitable engine in sales. She managed to convince her partners to buy — a then small startup — YouTube and not long after became its CEO.
Meg Whitman
As a President and Chief Executive Officer of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, she renewed and reinforced the policy of Personal Computers. But working in with hardware is not her major profession, as Meg is also a former eBay CEO responsible for the decision of purchasing Skype by the company, and a Republican Party politician, that was running for Governor of California in 2010.
Ginni Rometty
Ginni is a computer scientist and electrical engineer, that has worked with IBM since 1981. She has brought cloud computing and analytics businesses into the company and since 2012 she took the role of Chairwoman, President and CEO of IBM. She is currently working on Watson artificial intelligence and security of the services provided by the company.
The ENIAC Programmers
This list would feel empty without a group of six woman programmers, that created ENIAC — the first electronic general-purpose computer. Kathleen McNulty, Mauchly Antonelli, Jean Jennings Bartik, Frances Synder Holber, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer, Frances Bilas Spence and Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum have programmed the first digital computer for the US Army. Because during the World War II all engineers were serving in the army, women were given a chance to program a machine that could perform complex sequences of operations, including loops, branches, and subroutines.
