Tech Stream

Tech Stream 045 – Women in IT and Technology Special

26 March 2010

Listen and download: MP3

Image by Alexander Hans from Flickr.

We celebrate pioneering women who have chosen careers in IT and technology related fields this week in the Tech Stream. The inspiration for this program came when I discovered that this Wednesday just gone, March 24th, was Ada Lovelace Day.  Ada, the daughter of Lord Byron, who was born in England in 1815.  She  is often regarded as the world’s first computer programmer and is credited with actually writing the first description of a computer and of software.  On Wednesday bloggers from around the world took to their keyboards, to share their stories of women who, like Ada Lovelace, have made their mark in fields that is still largely dominated by men.

In our own program today we meet three women who are an inspiration to those around them.  They are passionate about encouraging more women into science and technology fields, but as you’ll hear they’re concerned that the number of young women attracted to working in these industries is in decline.

Follow the MP3 link above to hear the full program or read on for more details…

Joining me first in the Tech Stream is Maggie Alexander, business consultant and founding member of FITT – Females in Information Technology and Telecommunications.  FITT is a not for profit group which holds events and activities throughout the year to support, encourage and inspire women in the Australian ICT industry.

We then have two guests in the studio: Donna Benjamin, passionate open source advocate, business owner, event co-ordinator and president of the Linux Users of Victoria; and Dana Zhang, a PhD candidate in the department of Computer Science and Software Engineering at Melbourne University.

I asked all three of our guests to talk about women that they found inspiring, or that continue to inspire a new generation of young women interested in IT and technology.

Maggie talked about two women in particular: Tracy Fellow, Managing Director of Microsoft in Australia… and Narelle Clark, Research Director of the Networking Technologies Laboratory at the CSIRO’s ICT Centre.

Dana Zhang spoke about three people that inspire her as a researcher.  They are Maria Orlowska from the School of Information Technology & Electrical Engineering at  the University of Queensland;  Liz Sonenberg from the Department of Information Systems at Melbourne University and Elisa Bertino at the Department of Computer Sciences at Purdue University.

Donna Benjamin brought in a list of five women:  Dr Silvia Pfeiffer, Angela Byron, Rosie Cross, Fran Allen – the first woman to win a Turing award, and Ann Moffat – Director of Australian Computer Society (ACS) Foundation and a co-founder of FITT.

For more inspiring women in science and technology check out this long list from Panopy: http://www.panopy.com/ideas-for-blogging-on-ada-lovelace-day/