Maximum PC has a list of the 15 Most Important Women in Tech History
Do a quick Google News search for “women in technology” and your results are sure to be bemoaning the lack of female bodies in the industry (or maybe just results for that White Town album). Last year both the NYT and the WSJ had articles related to the topic – and published within a few weeks of each other – with the WSJ’s title being “Addressing the Lack of Women Leading Tech Start-Ups” and the intro to the NYT piece setting the tone with: “It’s become a familiar lament: Where are the women in technology?” Likewise, the Wikipedia entry for “Women in Computing” focuses almost entirely on the decline of women in tech-related fields, the modern day fights against sexism in the industry, and has sections like “Attracting women in computer science” and “Gender theory and women in computing.” (Interesting side note: there is no entry for “Men in computing.”)
Very rarely do stories of women and technology vary in tone from the gender gap theme. Where are the women? Well, heck, we’ve been here all along – something we’ve recently pointed out in our Valentine’s Day piece about ENIAC. So, in honor of Women’s History Month and Ada Lovelace Day (March 24th), and all the women in tech, we’ve decided to pay homage by counting down the 15 Most Important Women in Tech History.
Great list. We are what we celebrate.
24 thoughts on “The 15 Most Important Women in Tech History”
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Hah! They mention my album! :-P
Sadly, it shows we’re going nowhere, if all we have of late is a couple of game programmers (and I predate most of them in the industry). Can we have a list of the top 15 female IT performers today, to check? I don’t have time to check back, but I think there’s a passel missing.
This is really “15 important (probably not even most important) women in computer history”. How about Hedy Lamar, without who our wifi and cell phones wouldn’t work. How about the women in biotech, material science, energy, aviation or any of the other fields in technology?
I don’t know. Grace Hopper would rate in the top ten most important people in computer history on her own lights. I would definitely rate her above Ada Lovelace as the most influential.
The biggest problem for women in IT is the small number of women actually studying IT related fields at universities. That is self selection at work. I have no idea why that is so.
That said, many talented IT people didn’t start as IT majors. I started out as a musician. That’s not as uncommon as you might think. There are many many talented women in music yet I don’t know a single one that has though I know many many men who were formerly musicians that made the transition. I have been in the IT industry for 25 years.
As a woman, I really should know things about them! I mean, I’ve been using the technology where in they’ve put a lot of efforts in, and I surely need to know who are they. I have really been a fanatic of “a woman’s brain and power”, so I truly admire all of them! In the future, there will be more like them. :)
Lisa Moore
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[…] handful of women in tech, regardless of how determined, able and prominently visible they are, has for decades done little to alter the makeup of management and ownership. Gender diversity at Twitter, as […]
[…] handful of women in tech, regardless of how determined, able and prominently visible they are, has for decades done little to alter the makeup of management and ownership. Gender diversity at Twitter, as […]
[…] handful of women in tech, regardless of how determined, able and prominently visible they are, has for decades done little to alter the makeup of management and ownership. Gender diversity at Twitter, as […]
[…] handful of women in tech, regardless of how determined, able and prominently visible they are, has for decades done little to alter the makeup of management and ownership. Gender diversity at Twitter, as […]
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