Top 10 women inthe history of techThe 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.

Ada lovelaceIt’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.

grace hopperCredited 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.

Marissa mayerAt 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

Susan WojcickiDubbed, ‘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

Rebekah SoslandRebekah 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

Sheryl SandbergIn 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

Roberta WilliamsRoberta 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

Elizabeth FeinlerInducted 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

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

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.

Jean E Sammet

Image credit: Computer History Museum