SisterSledgeSays

24th March 2009 is the first Ada Lovelace Day, where people are blogging about women in technology that they admire. The aim is to highlight female role models and encourage women to become leaders in technology.

Ada Lovelace (1815 – 1852) is often referred to as the world’s first computer programmer.The daughter of the famous poet Lord Byron, and the admired intellect, Annabella Milbanke, Ada Lovelace represented the meeting of two alternative worlds: the romanticism and art of her father versus the rationality and science of her mother. In her attempt to draw together these polar opposites and create a ‘poetical science’ during the Victorian age, Ada collaborated with the renowned mathematician and inventor, Charles Babbage.

Find out more about Ada Lovelace and her work on the Analytical Engine at the Science Museum website.

Today, I’d like to introduce another less-known of the “Women of Technology”, Hedy Lamarr for her work in the Invention of Spread Spectrum Technology.

Although better known for her Silver Screen exploits, Austrian actress Hedy Lamarr (born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler) also became a pioneer in the field of wireless communications following her emigration to the United States. The international beauty icon, along with co-inventor George Anthiel, developed a “Secret Communications System” to help combat the Nazis in World War II. By manipulating radio frequencies at irregular intervals between transmission and reception, the invention formed an unbreakable code to prevent classified messages from being intercepted by enemy personnel.

Lamarr and Anthiel received a patent in 1941, but the enormous significance of their invention was not realized until decades later. It was first implemented on naval ships during the Cuban Missile Crisis and subsequently emerged in numerous military applications. But most importantly, the “spread spectrum” technology that Lamarr helped to invent would galvanize the digital communications boom, forming the technical backbone that makes cellular phones, fax machines and other wireless operations possible.

As is the case with many of the famous women inventors, Lamarr received very little recognition of her innovative talent at the time, but recently she has been showered with praise for her groundbreaking invention. In 1997, she and George Anthiel were honored with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Pioneer Award. And later in the same year, Lamarr became the first female recipient of the BULBIE™ Gnass Spirit of Achievement Award, a prestigious lifetime accomplishment prize for inventors that is dubbed “The Oscar™ of Inventing.”

Proving she was much more than just another pretty face, Lamarr shattered stereotypes and earned a place among the 20th century’s most important women inventors. She truly was a visionary whose technological acumen was far ahead of its time.

Oreillynet.com had a great series of articles on “Women in Technology” two years ago that introduces many women leading the way in technology today along with some current discussion forums on this topic…sad to say there’s not much discussion going on there. Perhaps women are too busy “doing” to be “chatting”?

The idea for this post was brought up at PledgeBank, where 1550 bloggers pledged to write about women in technology for Ada Lovelace Day. If you don’t have a blog of your own but still want to participate, leave your post in the comments at Findingada.com.

~Update~ Lotsa great posts coming in for Ada Lovelace Day!

• Check out the full list here
• Check out the Hedy Lamarr list here
• Read the best Hedy Lamarr post here