Ada Lovelace will have her day
Feb 9th, 2009 by christineburns
Suw Charman-Anderson is one of many professionals concerned about the relatively low numbers of women in technology careers such as IT. She feels that one of the reasons for this is a lack of role models in the field for other women to see.
To draw attention to the issue, and to stimulate widespread discussion, Suw has created “Ada Lovelace Day“. It’s a campaign to encourage over a thousand people to write a blog or otherwise share their views about a woman in technology who has inspired them — and to do it together in one concerted push on Tuesday 24th March.
I spoke to Suw via Skype about Ada Lovelace and the thinking behind her campaign.
Remember that you can sign the pledge to take part on March 24th at http://www.pledgebank.com/AdaLovelaceDay
I signed up to this recently and, listening to Suw talk, it struck me how right she is.
I work in the game’s industry and have been working in Europe for the past few years. In Denmark I worked with women programmers and I’m currently working with a Swedish company where women are at every stage of the development process - designers, coders, artists and project managers.
I’ve come back to the UK and talked about this and my male workmates are horrified. “Surely women are just a distraction in the office?” Is the standard response.