The week to celebrate women in IT kicks off. Let’s bring upfront the stories of #famousITwomen who’ve made breakthrough contributions along the history.
Did you know that the world’s first computer programmer is a woman? Ada Lovelace. Our first source of inspiration. She was an English mathematician and writer. Her best recognized work is on Charles Babbage’s early in 1842 mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. This was monumental in paving the way for the modern day computers.
Her notes on the Analytical Engine are considered the first algorithm ever used to implement on a computer. She also developed a vision on the capability of computers to go beyond mere calculating or number-crunching.
“The Analytical Engine, on the contrary, is not merely adapted for tabulating the results of one particular function and of no other, but for developing and tabulating any function whatever. In fact the engine may be described as being the material expression of any indefinite function of any degree of generality and complexity…”– Lovelace, Ada. Notes upon L. F. Menabrea’s “Sketch of The Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage”. 1842.
“One essential object is to choose that arrangement which shall tend to reduce to a minimum the time necessary for completing the calculation.”– Lovelace, Ada. Notes upon L. F. Menabrea’s “Sketch of The Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage”. 1842.
Hope Ada Lovelace’s story aroused your curiosity to learn from history more about IT famous women.
This week, stay tuned for the upcoming stories and win an invitation to I T.A.K.E. Unconference 2015.
Software craftswomen: Franziska Sauerwein
In celebration of Women’s Day, this March we salute yesterday & today women’s contribution to the development of the technology and IT fields. Follow #famousITwomen to find interesting stories. They might motivate and encourage you to do something out of the ordinary in your career.
#1. What’s your professional story?
Please share with us about your journey in the IT field.
#2. What would be a lesson you’ve learned so far as practitioners in this field?
As developers, we have a profound influence on our society and people’s everyday lives. How we write software and what we write has an impact and with great power comes great responsibility. And how people act when developing software has a great influence on how that software turns out. For example, a team that does not have a good team culture or a lacking relationship with the business will most probably have code quality problems that stem from misunderstandings and lack of communication. And sometimes products are developed just from a developer’s perspective without the user’s needs in mind when the teams are too homogenous. This is something that should definitely be changed.
#3. Whom do you admire as a women IT practitioner? Why?
Please share with our audience about great women you think they make a difference in this domain.
Let’s make a difference, together! – Women in tech @I T.A.K.E Unconference
Less than 1 in 4 leadership roles in the tech industry are held by women. This situation can be improved, for sure!
At I T.A.K.E Unconference, we aim to move the needle by offering to women in tech access to a fast-learning, practical & inspirational community for their growth.
Each year, remarkable women crafters join #itakeunconf. At this edition, you can meet:
- Felienne Hermans | Keynote | University Assistant & Founder | Research in the programming field
- Karina Popova, Head of Development | Artificial Intelligence & IoT
- Alexandra Marin, Software developer | Mobile Development
Let’s not stop here! Help us meet other remarkable women, from your teams and communities!
For you to easier join us, we are offering a free ticket and a special discount to tech ladies who will share with us one lesson learned from the IT trenches.
Let us know in a comment your story / experience / lesson learned while working in IT. The most inspirational story will win a free ticket. Everyone sharing their experience & lessons learned will receive 40% discount from the Standard ticket price (in the limit of available seats). Deadline to submit your story is March 16th.
We will announce the winner on March 22nd.
I T.A.K.E Unconference, 5th edition, 11-12 Bucharest. 6 keynotes, +30 international speakers, and an intense and dynamic program with topics like DevOps, AI, IoT, Software Design, Mobile, Architecture, Open Space, Kata Lounge, Programming Contest and more is in the row. Register now!
The Pioneer of OOP: Barbara Liskov
The week to celebrate women in IT continues with Barbara Liskov’s story. Let’s bring upfront the stories of #famousITwomen who’ve made breakthrough contributions along the history.
At the dawn of the software revolution, engineers were struggling. It wasn’t clear at that time how to organize code so that it was optimal, easy to understand and easy to change.
The solution proved to be finding the right abstractions. Barbara Liskov was an active participant in the conversation, publishing papers, implementing programming languages, database systems and operating systems. In one of these conversations, she came up with what is now known as the “Liskov Substitution Principle”, one of the 5 key principles of software design (the L from SOLID principles).
In 2004, Barbara Liskov won the highest award for computer science, the John von Neumann Medal for “fundamental contributions to programming languages, programming methodology, and distributed systems”. She also received the 2008 Turing Award for her work in the design of programming languages and software methodology that led to the development of object-oriented programming.
Watch the story of Object Oriented Programming in her keynote “The Power of Abstraction”, published by our partners from InfoQ.
Hope Barbara Liskov’s story aroused your curiosity to learn from history more about IT famous women.
This week, stay tuned for the upcoming stories and win an invitation to I T.A.K.E. Unconference 2015.