Author: Maisy Armstrong, Student Technology Consultant
Every year, March is celebrated as Women’s History Month. Women’s history month is an opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the achievements of amazing women throughout history as well as appreciate the value of those surrounding us today. If you’re interested, check out this article to learn more about the origins of Women’s History Month! There is a long list of talented, innovative women who have established the tech world as we know it. One such woman is Ada Lovelace, a brilliant mathematician who has been named “the first computer programmer”. I admire her for introducing many computer concepts and writing an algorithm for a computer machine in the mid-1800s. She has earned herself a spot among the most influential women in technology- here’s how…
Ada Lovelace was born on December 10, 1815 in Piccadilly Terra, Middlesex (now in London) and was the daughter of Annabella Milbake Byron and famed poet Lord Byron. Ada was a gifted student and, at her mother’s insistence, was tutored in mathematics and science from a young age. This was an unusual upbringing for a woman at the time, but her mother believed in her daughter’s talent and theorized that a rigorous schedule would develop discipline in Ada.
Around the age of 17, Ada met and became friends with Charles Babbage, known as the father of the computer. Lovelace was absorbed by Babbage’s technological explorations and worked as his associate for several years. Babbage invented the difference machine (an instrument designed to handle complex calculations) and later created a general-purpose computer called the Analytical Engine.
In 1843, Lovelace was asked to translate an article about Babbage’s Analytical Engine. Ada not only translated the document from French to English, but also famously annotated the work. Her sophisticated annotations tripled the length of the original article and described how the proposed Analytical Engine could be programmed to perform functions like the computation of Bernoulli numbers. She also inspired the process of looping (which is used in computer programs today) by theorizing a method for the engine to repeat a series of instructions. Lovelace’s innovative concepts were published in an English science journal however only her initials, “A.A.L.” were listed in the publication. The article received little attention when she was alive however for her theoretical methods, Lovelace is often considered to be the first computer programmer.
Despite her revolutionary ideas going unrecognized during her time, Lovelace’s legacy lives on. Her contributions to the field of computer science went undiscovered until the 1950s. Since then, she has been awarded many posthumous honors for her innovations. The computer language “Ada” was developed by the U.S. Department of Defense and is named after Lovelace. In addition, the second Tuesday in October has been designated Ada Lovelace Day and serves to honor the contributions of women to mathematics, science, technology, and engineering.