Thomas Otter

A member of the Gartner Blog Network

Thomas Otter
Research Vice President
3 years at Gartner
19 years IT industry

Thomas Otter is a research vice president in Gartner Research. He covers human capital management (HCM) trends and technologies, including core HR, payroll, talent management and workforce analytics. As part of this research…Read Full Bio

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Ada Lovelace Day. Women in Technology. 24th March.

by Thomas Otter  |  January 13, 2009  |  5 Comments

 

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.

I’d suggest you read the whole post here.

Ada Lovelace was the daughter of Lord Byron, the mad, bad, and dangerous to know poet.  She never knew her father.  She is considered by historians to be the first programmer. Charles Babbage called her the Enchantress of Numbers. The programming language ADA is named after her.

The software industry is relatively new, yet is it more male dominated than most other industries. This doesn’t reflect well on the industry. And we have no excuse.There should be no place for misogyny.

The software industry would be stronger and a better place  if we all could encourage more women to see their future in technology, we are missing out on the next ADA. Showcasing role models rather than just models is a damn good place to start doing our bit to address this inequality.  I’d urge all my readers to sign up here. Over a thousand people have done so.

Sign my pledge at PledgeBank

5 Comments »

Category: Events software industry     Tags:

5 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Links 01/14/2009   January 14, 2009 at 3:30 am

    [...] Ada Lovelace Day. Women in Technology. 24th March. [...]

  • 2 In Advance of Ada Lovelace Day   January 15, 2009 at 6:35 am

    [...] signed the pledge to blog about an unsung woman in tech on March 24. Thanks to Thomas Otter for pointing it out. News about Yahoo naming Carol Bartz as CEO yesterday is worth commenting on in [...]

  • 3 Innovation in a shed.   February 5, 2009 at 5:30 am

    [...] whatever the gender, creed and persuasion.  That reminds me I need to write my  Ava Lovelace post soon. [...]

  • 4 Facebook Applications   January 26, 2010 at 5:37 am

    Thanks for the oportunity of let me know this great woman. I’ve already posted this great event on my blog.

  • 5 1 Social Media   March 17, 2010 at 6:17 am

    well thanks for sharing info regarding the first programmer consider by the historian.. many of us don’t know about her so its nice to knew and read something about her