It’s International Women’s Day 8th March so make sure to have a read of the below and see how Cisco avidly supports, encourages and celebrates women in STEM careers.
Okay, so girls don’t actually run the tech world. Let’s also agree that tech should be about tech and not a gendered ‘one-upping’ competition. But in an industry that has been historically dominated by (many amazingly talented and inspirational) men, it does feel good to acknowledge the achievements of those women who have gifted us a key piece of the ever growing puzzle of technology. Technology which shapes and re shapes our world and how we live in it. Let’s have a chat about a few of these dolls, shall we?
Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) – ahead of the game.
Ada Lovelace, born Ada Gordon in 1815 was the daughter of renowned romantic poet Lord Byron and his mathematician wife, Annabella Milbanke. Lovelace is generally accepted as the world’s first computer programmer (Go, Ada!) She is most celebrated for her work on Charles Babbage’s early mechanical computer, the Analytical Engine. Ada’s notes and instructions on how to program it (the first ever algorithm to be processed by a machine) were the most comprehensive and the first to ever be published, even before Babbage’s himself.
Lovelace and Babbage had a lifelong friendship, with Babbage describing Ada as one ‘who has thrown her magical spell around the most abstract of Sciences and has grasped it with a force which few masculine intellects could have exerted over it..’. Babbage, you old softy, you.
Ada died aged 36 from cancer – so never actually lived to see the machine and her mastery of it being built or used. Despite her short years, her impact has been felt through generations. Her accomplishments, vision and passion have become symbolic for women in technology today.
Admiral Grace Hopper (1906-1992)
Fast-forward just shy of a century and you have ‘Amazing Grace’, Grace Murray Hopper. The woman who not only told us that it’s easier to ask for forgiveness rather than permission, but also invented the Flow-Matic, the first compiler in 1952. This is essentially software that translates instructions written in English into machine language for a computer so it can carry out an action. The development of this computer language made programming more accessible for people not adept at understanding those cryptic combinations of 1’s and 0’s. From this, Grace also instigated the use of Common Business Oriented Language (COBOL) which is still widely used today.
Celebrated each year at the annual Grace Hopper conference, this woman’s life is a true inspiration to all, not just those in and considering STEM careers. This clip of Grace Hopper on Letterman is testament to what a formidable lady she was and what a cracking sense of humour!
Other significant figures worth mentioning are, Radia Perlman – the ‘mother of the internet’. Forgive the somewhat misleading nickname, despite not actually inventing the internet, she did write the algorithm behind STP (or Spanning Tree Protocol) which is something super techy which allows the internet to function as it does.
Cisco avidly supports, encourages and celebrates women in STEM careers. A small example of commitment to that cause is the annual Women of Impact event coming up on March 10th. It coincides (not accidentally) with International Women’s Day on 8th March. The one day spectacular, which runs globally, linking Cisco offices across the globe via TP and simultaneously broadcasting live on CiscoTV reaches over 8,500 people every year. The conference aims to be a platform for networking, career development and above all, inspiration. The theme for 2016 is Be Unstoppable.
For more details on how to register your attendance (man or woman), partner or customer, and to see your local agenda for the day click here.
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