Since we are in the day of the working woman, and unfortunately the pioneers in many fields of computer science are often overshadowed or given less importance than they really deserve. That is why we have decided to pay a small tribute, taking advantage of the day we are here to talk about the pioneering women in computing. Which, by the way, will help you learn some history and for you to see that this is not just a one-sex thing.
It is a shame that, currently, one of the biggest stigmas that we still have to face in the 21st century is the fact that not only are there few women in the world of computing, but the vast majority, Unless they reach positions of responsibility, they are made invisible. Worse still, many times their achievements appear as if they had sprung up out of nowhere, like mushrooms that sprout from the field after a rainy night.
Important women in the world of computing
Not all of them are there, but we have selected five important women in the world of computing, who have been silenced by the so-called Matilda effect. And yes, a good part of the technologies that you use today are not only owed to men, but also to women.
Ada Lovelace
The first of these is Ada Lovelace, the RTX 40 was made in honor of her, despite the fact that she lived long before the time of modern computing, her observations on Babbage’s machine were the foundations for modern programming, the operation of the instruction cycle of a processor and were used for the then works of Alan Turing and Von Neumann in their respective fields.
Grace Hopper
Another computer scientist recently honored by NVIDIA with its products. She was not only a programmer, but also an admiral in the United States Navy and one of her milestones is having created the COBOL programming language, which has been used for decades in the banking field and continues to be used to this day. today.
Adele Goldberg
The graphical user interface was popularized by Apple after Steve Jobs stole it from Xerox’s Palo Alto labs. However, the true creator was Adele Goldberg. She was also the mother, along with Alan Kay, of the first object-oriented language, Smalltalk-80, which preceded others such as the widely popular C++.
hedy lamarr
Not only was she a film and theater actress, but it occurred to her to invent a communications system in the middle of the Second World War that she also patented. Thanks to her discovery we have wireless peripherals through Bluetooth and Wifi connectivity from any device in the world.
Lynn Conway
And we end the poker of aces with the engineer at IBM who invented out-of-order execution. A capacity that all modern processors have when it comes to executing their instructions, whatever the device and brand they are. Although Conway is transgender, his sexual identity has also led him to suffer from a vacuum in recognition of his work over time.
And you? Do you know any important figure in history that we have missed? Let us know in your comments
