When we think of innovators of the technology space we largely think of blokes like Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk – the zeitgeist is largely male.
But that hasn’t always been the case. As a matter of fact, for the first decade or so programming was a ‘pink-collar’ industry. The vast majority of early coders were women. What’s more, it’s an industry created by women. Two centuries ago (when computers were made of flywheels and cogs), Ada Lovelace was the matriarch behind programmable computers. The world’s first developer, who lay down the foundations for the future we’re currently living in, was a woman. Almost a hundred years after she published her seminal documents on programmable computers, Alan Turing used them as inspiration for the modern, electric machines we still use today.
Now however, for no discernable reason, just 20% of the Australian IT workforce are women. So in order to not forget the industry’s roots – and hopefully inspire more Australian women to start crunching code – we thought we’d remember three notable innovators who radically changed the course of technology as we know it.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, or even use Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for MakeCode, CircuitPython, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell with Google Hangouts On-Air is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
