Ada Lovelace Day

Ada Lovelace, daughter of the poet Lord Byron, was a pioneer in computer science. She wrote what is said to be the first computer program in her notes on an article on Charles Babbage’s analytical engine she translated from Italian. Today is “Ada Lovelace Day,” and Finding Ada has a compendium of sites blogging about women in computer science in celebration of the day.

As a partly relevant aside, as I do every year, last week I judged at the North Central Ohio District Science Day and the Marion Area Science and Engineering Fair, and my subjective impression (I haven’t done a count) is that girls dominated the awards, including one 9th grade girl who was selected to participate in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in San Jose, CA. That was great fun to see.