9 Tech Pioneers To Celebrate For Women's History Month
In celebration of Women's History Month, we spotlight 9 pioneers who drove transformational change in the tech industry.
The start of March marked the beginning of Women's History Month, a time for the recognition and celebration of the female pioneers who shaped our world.
While women have come a long way from the early days of technology, it continues to be a male-dominated industry. A stubborn lack of women in the field has motivated companies to implement initiatives to increase the number of female hires.
Many tech companies, Google and Microsoft among them, have implemented initiatives to hire more minority employees. Despite these types of projects, the number of women staying in tech careers long-term continues to underwhelm.
[Where to work? 10 companies working to boost women in IT.]
Intel, for example, is on a five-year plan to boost its workplace diversity numbers and recently shared an update on its progress. In 2015, its hiring of women reached 35%, an increase of 43% from one year prior.
Slow-moving progress is a shame, not only for women overall, but because organizations with women in top leadership roles can earn higher profits. A study conducted by the Peterson Institute for International Economics found that for profitable companies, going from no female leaders to 30% female leaders increased profits by 30%.
For Women's History Month, we do the same for innovators who influenced the technology we use today.
Who do you think are the most influential women in technology? Did we miss anyone on our list? We'd like to see your thoughts in the comments.
March 24 is otherwise known as Ada Lovelace Day, in celebration of a woman who many consider to be the first computer programmer due to the instructions she wrote for the first computer program in the mid-1800s.
Augusta Ada King, the Countess of Lovelace, was tutored in science and math as a child. As a teenager she became close friends with Cambridge mathematics professor Charles Babbage, who invented a calculating machine called the difference engine. She was later asked to translate an article about an analytical engine Babbage wanted to create, which she did while adding her own thoughts and ideas to his work.
Her additions included advanced concepts for her time, including an explanation of how codes could be developed so the engine would also be able to process letters and symbols. She also proposed the device should be able to repeat series of code, the same looping process used in today's computers.
Her work didn't get much recognition while she was alive. It began to influence modern computer science in the 1950s, about 100 years after her death in 1852.
Mary Kenneth Keller was the first woman in the US to receive a PhD in computer science. She was also a member of the Catholic order Sisters of Charity, where she professed her vows in 1940.
Sister Keller's academic career brought her to DePaul University, where she earned her bachelor's degree in mathematics and, later, master's degrees in both mathematics and physics. In 1965 she earned her PhD in computer science from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where she wrote a dissertation on creating algorithms to perform analytic differentiation on algebraic expression.
Following the completion of her PhD, she joined the faculty at Iowa's Clarke College. There, she founded the school's computer science department, which she chaired for 20 years. She died in 1985.
Erna Schneider Hoover was the brains behind the electronic telephone switching system and one of the first software patent holders in tech history.
Hoover worked at Bell Laboratories, where she worked on control programs for the radar in its Safeguard Anti-Ballistic Missile Defense System and was the first woman to be named a technical supervisor. She later invented and patented an electronic telephone switching system, which prioritized the input and output of the switch over less critical functions like billing and record keeping.
Hoover studied at Wellesley University, where she earned her BA in history and philosophy, then earned her PhD in philosophy and the foundation of mathematics at Yale University. She was a professor of philosophy and logic at Swarthmore College before leaving to go work at Bell Labs. She retired in 1987 after 32 years of working in the tech industry and is currently residing in Livingston, New Jersey.
Grace Hopper, a pioneer in computer programming, worked on the Mark I computer while serving with the US Navy in World War II. After the war ended, Hopper continued to serve in the Navy and further her computing career at Harvard University, where she was a research fellow.
During her time at Harvard, Hopper worked on the Mark II and Mark III computers before transferring to work in private corporations and managing the programming development for the UNIVAC I and II. The compiler, known as FLOW-MATIC, was designed to translate languages that could be used for business purposes. It later influenced the design of COBOL.
After a short retirement, Admiral Hopper rejoined the Navy as a leader in the Naval Data Automation Command. She drove efforts to promote COBOL and standardize compilers, especially within the Navy, where she led the development of programs for validating COBOL compilers. Hopper died in 1992 as a respected innovator, leader, professor, and speaker.
Betty Jean Jennings Bartik was a computer software pioneer who was on the team behind the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), the world's first entirely digital computer.
Bartik earned her mathematics degree in 1945 from the Northwest Missouri State Teachers College, where she was the only woman in her class. The US Army recruited her to work on artillery firing trajectories later in the same year. She then went on to work on the ENIAC computer. She worked on programming, designed logic and an electrostatic memory backup system for the UNIVAC I, and created reports to help businesses understand the microcomputer. Her goal was to simplify the process of using a computer.
Bartik was one of six women chosen to program and debug ENIAC, along with Frances Snyder Holberton, Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer, Frances Bilas Spence, and Kathleen McNulty Mauchly Antonelli. Bartik died in 2011, but continued to receive recognition for her work, earning a place along with her ENIAC partners in the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame.
Anita Borg was a computer scientist and advocate for the advancement of women in the tech field. She taught herself to program before earning her PhD in computer science from New York University, where she wrote a dissertation on operating system synchronization efficiency.
After receiving her doctoral degree, Borg spent years developing a fault-tolerant Unix-based operating system, and then went on to work for Digital Equipment Corporation. There, she patented a method for creating address traces for designing high-speed memory systems. She later worked in email communications and developed MECCA, an email system for chatting in virtual groups.
Borg founded several organizations within the tech industry. In 1987 she founded the Systers online community, the first email network for women in the tech industry, and later cofounded the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in 1994. In 1997, she founded the Institute for Women and Technology, which led to new programs that encouraged women to enter the field. She died in 2003. That year, the Institute for Women and Technology was renamed the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology in her honor.
Shirley Ann Jackson is the first African-American woman to receive a PhD in Theoretical Solid State Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Jackson's research laid the foundation for future innovators to build solar cells, fiber optic cables, and the portable fax. She worked as a theoretical physicist at Bell Laboratories and a professor of theoretical physics at Rutgers University.
Her work in academia, industry, government, and research earned Jackson several honors. President Obama named her the co-chair of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board in 2014, and she was also a member of the Secretary of State's International Security Advisory Board. Jackson is also a National Medal of Science recipient and is currently the 18th president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Jean Sammet is a software pioneer who led the development of FORMAC, a programming language and system used for symbolic mathematics.
She began her tech career at Sperry Gyroscope, where she managed its first scientific programming group. Later on she managed software development for MOBIDIC, a computer made for the Army Signal Corps., at Sylvania Electric Products. Sammet was also part of the committee behind COBOL.
In 1961, Sammet transferred over to IBM, where she worked on the FORMAC language. She was appointed the programming language technology manager for its systems development division in 1965. Sammet's IBM career also involved work on the Ada programming language, named for the aforementioned Ada Lovelace.
Sammet is a member of the US National Academy of Engineers. She holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Mount Holyoke, a master's degree in mathematics from the University of Illinois, and an honorary doctorate from Mount Holyoke. She is currently serving on the advisory board for the IEEE annals of the History of Computing.
Barbara Liskov was among the first women to earn her PhD in computer science in the US. She was also a trailblazer in computer programming, leading the development of multiple languages.
Liskov discovered her talent for programming as an employee at Mitre Corporation after earning her bachelor's degree in mathematics from UC Berkeley. She later worked on computer translation of human languages at Harvard and earned her PhD at Stanford, where she wrote her thesis on chess end-games.
Later, Liskov went on to teach in the computer science laboratory at MIT, where she conducted research on creating more reliable computer systems. She spearheaded the design of the CLU programming language, which served as the foundation of object-oriented programming used in Java and C#. Her division at MIT also created the Argus language, which broadened the ideas of CLU to distribute programs over a network.
Currently, Liskov is the Ford Professor of Engineering at MIT and leads its Programming Methodology Group.
Barbara Liskov was among the first women to earn her PhD in computer science in the US. She was also a trailblazer in computer programming, leading the development of multiple languages.
Liskov discovered her talent for programming as an employee at Mitre Corporation after earning her bachelor's degree in mathematics from UC Berkeley. She later worked on computer translation of human languages at Harvard and earned her PhD at Stanford, where she wrote her thesis on chess end-games.
Later, Liskov went on to teach in the computer science laboratory at MIT, where she conducted research on creating more reliable computer systems. She spearheaded the design of the CLU programming language, which served as the foundation of object-oriented programming used in Java and C#. Her division at MIT also created the Argus language, which broadened the ideas of CLU to distribute programs over a network.
Currently, Liskov is the Ford Professor of Engineering at MIT and leads its Programming Methodology Group.
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