I wish I went on quicker. That is–I wish a human head, or my head at all event, could take in a great deal more & a great deal more rapidly than is the case;–and if I had made up my own head, I would have portioned its wishes & ambition a little more to its capacity… In time, I will do all, I dare say. And if not, why, it don’t signify, & I shall have amused myself at least.
– Ada Lovelace, September 1840

Ada Lovelace Enchantress of Numbers

Ada Lovelace, formerly Ada Byron, Lord Byron’s daughter, wrote the world’s first computer program in 1843 for Charels Babbage’s Analytical Engine which was never finished. Babbage was so impressed with her intellect that he called her the “Enchantress of Numbers.”

Rear Admiral Grace “Amazing Grace” Hopper is considered by some to be the world’s second computer programmer for her work on Harvard’s Mark I computer, which dimmed the lights of Pennsylvania when she turned it on. The COBOL programming language, was based on her philosophy that programs could be written in a language closer to English rather than machine code. She may have also coined the term computer bug in 1947, when a moth got into the Mark II’s circuitry and shorted it out.

In 1946, the ENIAC, first all all-electronic digital computer, was introduced to the world. All six of the ENIAC’s programmers were women, referred to as “Computers” at the time.

In 2006, Frances E. Allen became the first woman to receive the Turing Award for contributions to the field of Artificial Intelligence. Mary Lou Jepsen was the Founder and Chief Technology Officer of the One Laptop Per Child. Where I work, in the Coast Guard’s Information Services Division, half of the programmers and database developers are women.

With so many pioneers and present-day leaders in the field of computer science, it’s a shame that the number of women seeking degrees in CS is plummeting because girls associate computer scientists with, “geeks, pocket protectors, isolated cubicles and a lifetime of staring into a screen writing computer code.”

Computer Science Bachelor’s Degrees by Gender

There is still a huge demand for Computer Scientists, and the “Median annual earnings of computer and information scientists employed in computer systems design and related services in May 2006 were $95,340.” Computer Science is one field where women came out with strong representation from the very beginning and continue making strong contributions to the field, but those gains will vanish if girls avoid a rewarding, well-paying career in Computer Science simply because they think it’s too geeky.

See Also:

Famous Women in computing

The Eniac Women Programers