From the first technological revolutions, women have always been part of it, whether programming, developing or innovating. Unfortunately, however, their achievements are not spread enough among average people, therefore they ended up being left out from tech history. 

But today, on this International Women's Day, we are going to tell you the story of 5 professionals who changed technology.

Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer 

Mathematician Augusta Ada King, best known as Ada Lovelace, was one of the first women to study computer science. In 1843, the Countess of Lovelace translated texts by the Italian mathematician Luigi Menabre about the analytical tools used by Charles Babbage.

However, her achievements go much further, as scientists say that her notes of mathematics resulted in nothing less than the first algorithm in history. Unfortunately, because there were no modern machines to test her algorithm, Ada could nott prove it in life, but years later it was proven to be correct.

Today, Ada is considered the first programmer in history and even important computer awards that recognize advances in the field were given name after hers.

Radia Perlman, the mother of the internet

Radia Perlman is a software designer and network engineer. She was responsible for creating, in 1985, the STP (Spanning Tree Protocol) protocol while working for Digital Equipment Corporation.

At the time, the protocol created by Perlman improved the performance of connected systems by avoiding data loops. Very quickly, STP was adopted for network bridge technology and made it possible for Ethernet to manage massive networks. That is the origin of the title “mother of internet”. 

Radia is also a pioneer in teaching programming to children and created several network security protocols. Today, she works at Intel and owns more than 50 patents on connection technologies.

Grace Hopper, the queen of computing

Grace Hopper, the first woman to graduate from Yale University, with a PhD in mathematics, has many titles to call her own. In addition to graduating from university, she was also the first admiral in the U.S. Navy.

In the ​​technology field, Grace was one of the creators of COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language), a programming language for commercial databases. In addition to COBOL, the systems analyst also created programming languages ​​for the first commercial computer manufactured in the United States, the UNIVAC I. 

Grace's most famous story, however, is that which points to her as the author of the term “bug” to indicate flaws in source codes. The term would have come up when she tried to locate a problem on her computer, until she found a moth on the machine. When Grace saw the insect, she called the problem "bug".

Gracer Hopper passed away in 1992 at the age of 85. However, its legacy is still celebrated today, because due to its relevance, since 1994, the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing has been held, an event that celebrates the achievements of women in the field of computing.

Karen Spärck Jones, the master of the search

You may not know who Karen Spärck Jones is, but if you use search engines and get answers in seconds, you must thank her.

During her life, Karen dedicated her work to language processing and created the concept of “inverse document frequency”, the fundamental key used by search engines, such as Google. She taught computers to understand a common language, starting from terms and crossing a filtering system, which made it possible to identify the relevance of the terms to the search.

The computer scientist developed her studies at Cambridge University, where she worked for 30 years. When she retired, she devoted her time to include women into the world of technology, until her death in 2007. A year later, the British Computer Society created the Karen Spärck Jones Award, sponsored by Microsoft Research.

Sister Mary Kenneth Keller, the pioneer of computing science

Considered the first woman to obtain a doctorate in computer science, the nun Mary Kenneth Keller graduated from the University of Washington in 1958. Her most important contribution was the creation of the BASIC programming language, used for decades for teaching purposes.

In her life, Sister Mary fought for democratic access to the computer until she died in 1985. In addition, the doctor wrote four books on computing and programming; these works are still used today.  

Due to Sister Mary's remarkable work, currently the Clarke University, where she worked for two decades, maintains the Keller Computer and Information Services Center.

We, at Easy, thank every woman who works double or even triple shift and is still capable of transforming the technological world!

Share this text with women passionate about technology and don’t forget to make their importance evident to other people! Happy International Women's Day!