Ada Lovelace Day, celebrating women in technology

What’s Ada Lovelace Day?

Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging (videologging, podcasting, comic drawing etc.!) to draw attention to the achievements of women in technology and science.

Who was Ada?

Ada Lovelace was one of the world’s first computer programmers, and one of the first people to see computers as more than just a machine for doing sums. She wrote programmes for Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, a general-purpose computing machine, despite the fact that it was never built. She also wrote the very first description of a computer and of software.

Use tag #ald10 in your tweets and posts, and share with us in the comments! Who’s an inspiring woman in science or technology to you? Who do you wish to inspire with science in technology? Here are some of my favorite projects recently from techy ladies:

TearDrop by Leah Buechley, Tshen Chew, Hannah Perner-Wilson, Emily Lovell, and Jie Qi:

TearDrop is a kit that allows people to explore the creative and practical potentials of paper-based computing. What interfaces might we build if we could sketch functional sytems directly on paper? What will circuits look like when they are painted or drawn instead of etched or machined?

The kit enables people to paint functional interactive devices on paper. These might include painted sensors and actuators, functioning user interface sketches, beautiful drawings that integrate functionality and aesthetics, and working schematic drawings.

Monochron by Limor Fried/Adafruit Industries, enclosure by Amanda Wozniak, it’s an open source clock platform! Adafruit is also celebrating 24 hours of Lady Ada Lovelace with a post about an inspirational woman every hour on their blog!

This Arecibo Message Scarf was embroidered on a fancy computerized embroidery machine by Evil Mad Scientist Lenore Edman. I wrote about her on CRAFT in our “Blogs We Love” series a while back, and still can’t get enough!

Here’s Elly Jessop and her augmented voice performance glove, I met her at MIT!

Diana Eng’s Fairytale Fashion show wasn’t afraid to blink, glow, and whir all the way down the runway.

More:

• Today is Ada Lovelace Day, celebrating women in technology
• Blogs We Love: Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories
• It’s Always Ada Lovelace Day at O’Reilly (and at MAKE)
• Make: Online: Diana Eng Archives
• Fashionable Technology. The Intersection of Design, Fashion, Science, and Technology by Sabine Seymour
• Introduce a girl to engineering today