Ada Lovelace day and how I got where I am
Actually, Ada Lovelace day was yesterday so this is a slightly late post. Anyway, here’s a brief summary of lovely Ada. She was the only child of Lord Byron and during the 1800s, she is considered to be the first programmer and created a program for the Analytical Engine designed by Charles Babbage (although the machine was never built). Quite an achievement, not only because of her pioneering in this field but also the fact she was female. If you think back to those days of yore, being female and innovative wasn’t something that was expected from the status quo. Regardless, she is a pinnacle of inspiration for women in technology.
Fast-forward a couple of centuries, and we have more and more women becoming interested in technology myself included. I guess I had that computer gene, when I was 8 or 9 years old I always liked to play with electronics and games. I also loved Lego, especially the Technics set. I got my first Commodore 64 at the age of 10 and I absolutely loved it. I was quite inquisitive and I discovered programming in BASIC for the first time. I fondly remember my first program; it was a temperature conversion program from Fahrenheit to Celsius and vice versa. In addition, does anyone remember the PEEKs and POKEs? Those were the days…
When I was 15 studying for my last year at school, before I talked to my school career advisor, I already knew I was going to be in the I.T field in some form. Although I had the architectural path as a backup career, my heart was in technology. Higher education was interesting, I took a couple of computing courses and I was the only girl in the class. To be honest, I never felt daunted by the prospect and the guys were a lot of fun. There was some drunken moments which I will never forget, but moving swiftly on!
Even now, as I climb the career ladder, corporate practices on encouraging women in technology are improving but for some the barrier of old fashioned social order is still there. The ethos of men doing all the work and women staying behind the kitchen sink still persists. Thankfully, all the companies I have worked for never viewed me any lesser than my male counterparts, and in a way having women in a team gives that balance and can introduce a new perspective. I never felt myself intimidated in a male working environment; I guess I get along with pretty much everyone. If you show your skills and have the impetus to push your ideas through, then you have higher visibility and thus increase your chances of being recognised. This goes for men and women alike. Ada got the ball rolling for women, and it can only improve from here on in.
On a separate note, I already tweeted this today but sometimes I can’t understand the level of stupidity in our society. A BMW driver follows his SatNav unquestioningly, moving headlong towards a precipice. If he actually went over the edge, he would definitely have been a contender for the Darwin Awards. I have never needed to use a TomTom and generally looked up the directions on the internet. What happened to the good old-fashioned map? Alternatively, how about doing your research and planning your journey in advance (or in this case, just looking ahead would have helped). We don’t need a Terminator-esque Skynet to kill off humanity, we are doing quite well on our own.
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