A Day dedicated to Lady Bloggers

By Suneetha.B

Heard of Ada Lovelace? No? Or is it yes, and can’t place her? Okay, what about Charles Babbage? Ah, does that ring a bell? Well, Augusta Ada King or the Countess of Lovelace, or the English poet Lord Byron's only legitimate child was one of the world's first computer programmers. This techie pioneer wrote the very first description of a computer and of software.

Ada Lovelace is also credited for writing programs for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, despite the fact that it was never built.

Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. Women's contributions often go unacknowledged; their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised. The day is celebrated to tell the world about these unsung heroines. Whatever she does, whether she is a Sysadmin or a tech entrepreneur, a programmer or a designer, developing software or hardware, a tech journalist or a tech consultant, her achievements are on the way to being celebrated.

It doesn't matter how new or old your blog is, what gender you are, what language you blog in, or what you normally blog about - everyone is invited to take part. All you need to do is sign up to this pledge and then publish your blog post any time on Tuesday 24th March 2009.

Techgoss decided to put in a supportive effort and honour an Indian woman techie on the list of people who signed up and we didn’t have to go far. We found Sunayana Sitaram and did this short interview with her.

Q (Techgoss): why do you think such blog events interests people in general and what made you sign up for the event in particular?
A (Sunayana): This event is being conducted to celebrate Ada Lovelace Day on the 24th of March, 2009. Ada Lovelace was the world's first computer programmer, and people all over the world are signing a pledge to take part in the event by blogging about a woman in technology on that day. Being a woman in technology myself, I understand how important it is for women to have role models in this male dominated field, so spreading awareness about successful women in technology seems like a very good idea.

Q: A few words on your background please
A: I'm a final year Computer Engineering student from NIT (REC) Surat, Gujarat. I plan to pursue a master’s degree in a few months time. I have always been very interested in technology, and have often wondered why there are so few women in my field. I have been an active participant in conferences like the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (2008) and also volunteer for a Delhi-based NGO called Feminist Approach to Technology.

Q:  what you look forward to doing in techieland in future... does the recession affect your ambition?
A: I plan to pursue a masters followed by a PhD and a career in research in academia or industry. I don't think the recession will affect me too much, because the fields I plan to specialize in Human Computer Interaction, Computational Linguistics, Speech and Language Processing, which are in demand right now. In any case, PhDs are always in demand!

Q:  Women in USA and Europe are reported to be dropping out of the IT Sectors as per the recent surveys, what do you think is the reason for that?
A: Mainly because of the lack of role models, this is again due to the lack of women in the field. In the end, it boils down to the fact that a computer science is still seen as a job where one sits at a computer all day without interacting with people. This stereotype is not only causing a decrease in the number of women in the field, but also men. Enrollment in US universities is really low for Computer Science today.

The target of the Ada blogging day was just 1000 bloggers, but it has been subscribed over already. More people have caught the spirit of the theme and are coming in still. The woman you write about doesn't need to be alive, high-profile or even well-known. You might even write about ‘your erstwhile technophobe mum who took herself off on a computer course and now is gloriously webby, with her own LiveJournal, Yahoo! Group and apparently limitless collection of pointless email forwards’.

So if you want to contribute your two words to the event and join the celebrations here is the link.