The digital domain is slowly but surely changing with more and more women graduating with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) qualifications than ever before. During Women’s History Month and to commemorate International Women’s Day, we thought it was the prime time to take a look at some of the women who have made major contributions to the tech world throughout history. http://ifactory.com.au/news/top-10-women-history-tech

1. Top10womenin
thehistoryoftech
The digital domain is slowly but surely changing
with more and more women graduating with STEM
(Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) qualifications
than ever before. During Women’s History Month and to
commemorate International Women’s Day, we thought it was the
prime time to take a look at some of the women who have made major
contributions to the tech world throughout history.

2. Adalovelace
It’s only fair that we start our list
with the female mathematician
who is recognised as being the
first to understand how a
computing machine could do
more than pure calculation.
Lovelace successfully created
an algorithm for Charles
Babbage’s ‘Analytical Engine’.
The work Lovelace produced in
the 1840s has led to her being
named the world’s first
computer programmer.

3. gracehopper
Credited with creating the
world’s first computer code
compiler during the 1940s -
technology that translates
source code into another
programming language, Hopper
is just as well known for
inventing the term ‘debugging’
when she found a moth inside a
Mark 2 computer system. In 1996
the US Navy launched the USS
Hopper in her honour; it’s one of
only a handful of US military
vessels named after women.

4. Marissamayer
At the age of 37, Mayer was the
youngest CEO of a Fortune 500
company when she was
appointed President and CEO of
Yahoo! Mayer is also widely
known as the first female
engineer employed at Google –
way back in 1999.
Image credit: Martin Klimek/ZUMA Press

5. SusanWojcicki
Dubbed, ‘Queen of the Small
Screen” Wojcicki is the CEO of
YouTube. Before securing the
top job at YouTube, Wojcicki
was Google’s 16th employee
where she was instrumental in
working on the first Google
Doodles. As Senior Vice
President of Advertising and
Commerce at Google, Wojcicki is
also credited with making major
contributions to Google’s digital
marketing products AdWords,
AdSense and Analytics.
Image credit: Adam Fedderly

6. Rebekah
Sosland
Rebekah Sosland is the
youngest ever Flight Director at
NASA. Sosland leads the tactical
downlink team for NASA’s
Opportunity Mars rover project,
which despite its problems
continues to gather data from
the surface of the red planet.
Image credit: SystemsGoEducation

7. Sheryl
Sandberg
In 2008, Sheryl Sandberg was
named Facebook’s Chief
Operating Officer and four years
later was elected to the Board of
Directors. The role of COO at
Facebook represents
Sandberg’s second major senior
tech appointment. From
2001-2008, she was the Vice
President of Operations and
Global Online Sales at Google.
Image credit: Facebook

8. Roberta
Williams
Roberta and her husband Ken
founded On-Line Systems in
1980. Williams designed the first
game that used colour graphics.
The game, The Wizard and the
Princes became the best-selling
game on the Apple II computer
in 1980 and Williams also
designed King’s Quest, the
world’s first animated 3D
adventure game in 1984.
Image credit: Ken Williams

9. Elizabeth
Feinler
Inducted into the internet Hall
of Fame in 2012, Feinler was the
Director of the Network
Information Systems Centre at
the Stanford Research Institute
during the 1970s and 80s. Feinler
managed the team that
operated ARPANET – the early
packet switching network that
lay the technical foundation for
what would be the internet.
Image credit: Internet Society

10. To this day, Tereshkova remains
the only woman in the world to
have made a solo space voyage.
At just 26 years of age, she was
the USSR’s first woman to enter
the space race, circling Earth 48
times over three days during
June 1963.
Valentina
Tereshkova

11. In 1962, Sammet followed up on
the work pioneered by Grace
Hopper and created FORMAC
(FORmula MAnipulation
Compiler) while working at IBM.
Sammet became the first ever
female president of the
Association for Computing
Machinery in 1974 and in 2009
received a Computer Pioneer
Award from the IEEE Computer
Society – the largest technical
professional organisation.
JeanESammet
Image credit: Computer History Museum