The Royal Institution is having another great event this year for Ada Lovelace Day 2014! If you’re in the London area it’s sure to be an awesome event. Get your tickets here.
An afternoon of inspirational science, demonstrations, futuristic technology and performance at the Royal Institution.
Six of the most engaging speakers in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) are brought together in one event to talk about their work, and share stories of their own role models on Ada Lovelace Day 2014. They will encourage students to rethink out-dated stereotypes of what a “scientist” looks like, to realise that a team of people who think in different ways is always better than a group who all think the same, and be inspired to continue studying science, technology, engineering and maths subjects into the future.
This event is suitable for all students aged 11 to 16, and we encourage both female and male students to attend!
Speakers and performers
- Roma Agrawal: Civil engineer from the team that built The Shard will bring both bridges and jelly babies.
- Sarah Angliss: Musician and programmer in a live performance with theremin and robots.
- Rachel Armstrong: Sustainability innovator who is creating new living materials for future starship “Project Persephone”.
- Hannah Fry: UCL mathematician who looks at how maths can be used to predict the future.
- Victoria Herridge: Paleobiologist at the Natural History Museum and dwarf mammoth (yes they really exist!) expert.
- Sophie Scott: Neuroscientist at UCL with a unique look at why we laugh and what happens to our bodies when we do.
Hosted by Helen Arney, comedian, science presenter and one third of Festival of the Spoken Nerd, as heard in Radio 4’s ‘Infinite Monkey Cage’ and seen on Discovery Channel’s ‘You Have Been Warned’.
Tickets are £3.00 per person. We charge a small fee for schools events to help discourage non-attendance and provide income to invest back into our schools programme.
Please note, this event is designed for school groups. Home educators are welcome to bring their school age children. However, children aged 11 and under cannot be admitted into the theatre and children must be accompanied by an adult at all times whilst in the building.
About Ada Lovelace Day
Ada Lovelace Day is an international celebration of the achievements of women in STEM. It aims to raise their profiles, to inspire others and to create new role models for young and old alike. It began as a day of blogging in 2009, and has now grown to become a global phenomenon, with thousands of participants worldwide organising grass-roots gatherings, conferences, meet-ups, Wikipedia edit-a-thons, and other live events. Find out more at www.findingada.com
Ada Lovelace Day Live!
Join us again on the evening of 14 October at the Royal Institution for our science cabaret, Ada Lovelace Day Live! Featuring Roma Agrawal, Hannah Fry and 6 other women in STEM, ALD Live! is a fascinating evening of science, technology and comedy that will be sure to entertain and inform you! Suitable for adults and children over 16. Tickets will be available soon – please subscribe to the Ada Lovelace Day newsletter to be amongst the first to know.
Who was Ada Lovelace?
Victorian mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer programme, yet she lived 100 years before the first electronic computers were built. Instead, she worked with nothing more than plans for a mechanical computer called the Analytical Engine, which was being designed by Charles Babbage.
Ada’s deep understanding of the Engine and her uniquely imaginative approach lead her to write not just the first computer programme, but also to describe a future for computing that now seems uncannily accurate. She saw that a computing machine could create images and music if it was given the right algorithms, and not just do complicated sums – a view that was much more nuanced than those of her peers.
