These stories are neither comprehensive biographies, nor representative of the entirety of women's contributions to the development of technology and modern computing. But they're super-interesting, so I wanted to share them.

As well as being interesting stories in themselves, the main reason I want to spotlight these women is because I know that I was lucky. I grew up without it even occurring to me there might be "women's jobs" and "men's jobs". Just … no … errrr … what?!

In large part, that's thanks to my mum. She was the first woman to work in ICI's paint lab. Oooh, science job! (This was in the '70s though, so she was paid half as much as her male counterparts.)

We've come a long way since then. But there's more we can all do to make work more equitable. Part of that, I think, is to showcase role models – if you can see it, you can be it – and to celebrate and share the professional achievements of all kinds of people. So, this is a tiny contribution towards that.

Katie Parry (she/her)
Director

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You might also like this insightful talk about the huge role women've played in the development of tech and modern computing.

Recorded in 2018 at a Chicago Humanities event, VICE reporter and author of the book Broad Band, Claire L. Evans, gives some more unsung women in tech their due:

I was especially interested to learn about the 'ENIAC Six' – Betty Holberton, Jean Jennings Bartik, Kay McNulty, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer, Ruth Lichterman, and Frances Bilas Spence. In 1943 these highly trained mathematicians were recruited to program the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, aka the ENIAC.

This was way before programming languages existed so, having been given wiring and logic diagrams of the machine to work from, they were tasked with figuring it out. Which they did. They got no recognition when the machine was unveiled, but that doesn't lessen their achievements which are worth both remembering – and celebrating!