Finding Ada
Today is Ada Lovelace Day. I should be blogging about a woman I admire in technology to support and publicise the efforts of innovative and amazing women in computing worldwide, but I'm not going to.
I've always struggled with the idea of role models; sure, there are people I admire (mostly those I've worked with myself, not far-off celebrity figures) and whom I might wish to emulate. But mostly they are deeply personal to me, and the reasons I respect them are not necessarily helpful to others with different career ideas to me, or who don't know them personally. And my role models are both men and women; I cannot in all honesty say the women outnumber or outrank the men, although I have known some incredible women in technology, including Karen Sparck-Jones (already written about by others today). The women are just, sadly, few and far between compared to the number of men I have worked with, and some of the men have been damn good.
I don't feel able to single out one, as each has played a different part in helping, guiding, inspiring and coaching me. I don't know that I can even recall to mind the whole list of brilliant engineers and computer scientists I would want to cite, amidst a busy day in my life as an engineer and leader.
So instead of an insight into one particular outstanding woman, you get a short blog post, encouraging you to go out and find all the other people who are posting more erudite articles and recollections today, for they are a source of inspiration and hope.
This Ada Lovelace Day, there are far too few women in technology; far too few women in leadership in business and in academia; and far too few women governing in the political sphere. Karen Sparck-Jones once said - accurately - that computing was far too important to be left to men. Industry, teaching, research and the future of our nation and world are also far too important to be left to men.
I've always struggled with the idea of role models; sure, there are people I admire (mostly those I've worked with myself, not far-off celebrity figures) and whom I might wish to emulate. But mostly they are deeply personal to me, and the reasons I respect them are not necessarily helpful to others with different career ideas to me, or who don't know them personally. And my role models are both men and women; I cannot in all honesty say the women outnumber or outrank the men, although I have known some incredible women in technology, including Karen Sparck-Jones (already written about by others today). The women are just, sadly, few and far between compared to the number of men I have worked with, and some of the men have been damn good.
I don't feel able to single out one, as each has played a different part in helping, guiding, inspiring and coaching me. I don't know that I can even recall to mind the whole list of brilliant engineers and computer scientists I would want to cite, amidst a busy day in my life as an engineer and leader.
So instead of an insight into one particular outstanding woman, you get a short blog post, encouraging you to go out and find all the other people who are posting more erudite articles and recollections today, for they are a source of inspiration and hope.
This Ada Lovelace Day, there are far too few women in technology; far too few women in leadership in business and in academia; and far too few women governing in the political sphere. Karen Sparck-Jones once said - accurately - that computing was far too important to be left to men. Industry, teaching, research and the future of our nation and world are also far too important to be left to men.