With the end of women’s month, let us all celebrate the women who touched human life with their accomplishments in the tech sector. Let us spread the inspiration to the next generation of ambitious young women who are eager to learn new digital skills and prepare them to continue contributing to the world of STEM.
We would like to highlight the historical foundation of the contributions of women in tech, the current tech environment for women, and touch on how we can all improve for the future. I hope this piece will both energize and inspire you as much as they have inspired all of us at IBM Z.
History of female accomplishments in tech:
Women have been an integral part of the computing and technology industry from the early 40s to the 70s and leading up to today. Let’s start with Grace Hopper Grace was a computer scientist and pioneer who started her career with the US Navy and collaborated with top universities like Harvard. She was the leader of developing the idea of automatic programming and software development. As one of the very first programmers working on developing the first electromechanical computer in the US, known for (MARK I), she was also a pioneer when it came to the IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator.
Continuing her brilliant computing career, she joined Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation and was at the forefront of introducing modern programming languages based on coding written in languages, which has had a great impact on the computer-science community as a whole. She provided greater access for people with no STEM backgrounds. With different programming languages being developed over time, it was necessary to develop a common coding language that could be standardized and used across many sectors and industries…COBOL (common business-oriented language). COBOL was designed and introduced to the computer science community pioneered by Hopper as it made widespread adoption within the 1970s. It’s still alive and well, by the way! The majority of the world’s workloads continue to run on COBOL, leveraging IBM Z technology.
As we fast forward to the crucial role women played in space exploration, this future leap recognized these brilliant programmers as “Computer Girls”. In the early 1960s, various teams in NASA centers across the United States were working relentlessly to make it to the moon landing. Sue Finley and her team of female mathematicians in “Jet Propulsion Laboratory” in California had the first contributions that enabled us to reach the moon where they focused on sending cameras to the moon surface, unscrewed NASA spacecraft within robotic lunar missions, and planned the Apollo landing on the moon.
In addition to this major feat, as we fast forward to Jeanette Scissum, an African American programmer, she led the team that selected the best landing location for the Apollo lunar mission.
At the Cleveland Flight Propulsion Laboratory in Ohio, Annie Easley, an African American woman and chief programmer in the lab, played the key role of coding NASA’s Centaur rocket engines, which would be a central component of the Apollo rocketry.
Not forgetting to mention, Katherine Johnson, who was responsible for calculating emergency return routes and trajectories for Apollo and many other missions.
And, finally, we reach the most important moment in the history of mankind, the landing moment of the first mission on the moon that was saved by Margaret Hamilton…the Director of Apollo flight computer programming and her team who developed onboard flight software for the mission and made the landing of the first man on the moon possible.
As you can see, women have been key aspects and leaders throughout the history of computer science, and it’s important to recognize the pioneers who started this amazing field that brought significant technological innovation and creativity.
Inclusion in Tech:
Despite the contributions of women throughout the history of innovation in computer science, diversity and inclusion in the tech is still a challenge. Women are still an underrepresented community in the tech sector, and this also corresponds to leadership positions. Worldwide, a small percentage of females compared to the percentage of men take up STEM fields in university and of those that do, some do not continue with their technical field of study. Women from different ethnicities and races represent even smaller percentages in the workforce, including leadership position.
Similar dismal results are seen when evaluating the number of startups that are funded by venture capital, where single digit percentages are still the norm.
One of our goals within the IBM Z team is to empower everyone, with a specific emphasis on underserved and underrepresented communities, to learn the vary skills that will prepare them for the future of work in technology. This means being diverse and inclusive in everything we do, and not just talking about it in a blog…truly practicing it.
Did you know that 71% of our Student Experience team responsible for the IBM Z Global Student Hub is made up of women, and 71% of the team also comes from various countries throughout Africa. Our team is also made up of people from varying backgrounds, age groups, and levels of experience. We focus on incorporating design thinking into everything we do to enable us to think about what you might want to see from us, what events might be interesting for you, what content you might want to see, and how we can strive to make tech a more diverse and inclusive place for current and future generations.
How can we encourage more female participation in Tech?
Women continue to fight for equal opportunities, equal pay, and recognition in the tech industry where their valued work break records, receive patents, and rock the world with creativity and innovation. Did you know that our team’s IBM Hyper Protect Accelerator program has 53% of our startups with at least one female founder, 34% of our startups have at least one black founder, 14% of our startups have at least one LatinX founder, and 14% of our startups have at least one AsianX founder. Diversity and inclusion is not something to just talk about, it is something that you just do.
Inspiring young girls to pursue their future dream jobs in tech and entrepreneurship, in general, should be a matter of high importance to address the gap that exists today. We can achieve this by providing information and awareness of the career possibilities and what working in the tech sector involves, which could be a key factor for them to get introduced into a STEM career path, beginning with encouraging them to explore STEM-related subjects at schools and at an early age. In addition, introducing female mentors, matching young girls with role models, and breaking stereotypes is extremely important so young females can seek the guidance and support they need to achieve true career progress and advancement.
Campaigning for awareness that tech is for girls goes beyond the traditional STEM education and can also boost female participation in the industry. Tech also intertwines with cultural and social education; thus, tech education can be achieved through informal or online education supported by different organizations across the globe with the objective of introducing young girls and women to the world of tech and coding. IBM Z with its different collaborators provides free resources for digital skill-building, networking opportunities for women in STEM, and connecting opportunities with several industry leaders. Our collaborator ITU is in particular supportive of girls in ICT programs and is working towards involving key stakeholders and communities to encourage higher female involvement in STEM fields. Check out https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Digital-Inclusion/Women-and-Girls/Girls-in-ICT-Portal/Pages/GirlsInICTDay/2021/GICT-2021.aspx
Don’t miss these organizations' work in tech for females!
Let’s celebrate the brilliant women who have shown us a better way for the future and take part in the conversation on the IBM Z Global Student Hub!
What can you expect on the Hub – read here for more!
Resources:
- https://ghc.anitab.org/
- https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/17/science/women-astronauts-nasa.html
- https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/chasing-moon-women-who-brought-us-moon/
- https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/23/science/moon-landing-women-apollo-11.html
- https://elective.collegeboard.org/secret-history-women-tech
- https://www.pwc.co.uk/who-we-are/women-in-technology/time-to-close-the-gender-gap.html
- https://president.yale.edu/biography-grace-murray-hopper
- https://www.nytimes.com/1992/01/03/us/rear-adm-grace-m-hopper-dies-innovator-in-computers-was-85.html