The first ever programmer was a woman, and Indian hockey at the Olympics | #64

Also, fun facts about the CEOs of Canva and IBM

Jul 31, 2021

I think it is very important to get more women into computing. Computing is too important to be left to the men. - Karen Spärck Jones

Karen Jones was right. A pioneer, who introduced the concept of inverse document frequency, something that is the backbone of any good search engine. When she passed away in 2007, her death was unreported. In 2019 the New York Times printed an obituary, highlighting stories of remarkable people whose deaths went unreported.

This week’s newsletter is dedicated to people like Karen Jones - women in tech who excelled despite facing gender bias and discrimination. Finally a Karen we can all cheer for.

Things we learnt this week

The earliest computer programmer and the first woman in tech was Lady Ada Lovelace. She was the daughter of Lord Byron. Lord Byron was an a**hole who kicked out his wife after the birth of a daughter to pursue a relationship with an actress. Lady Byron made Ada study Mathematics in order to make her less of a romantic and more rational. Apart from being the earliest computer programmer, Ada Lovelace also can claim to be the first ever data scientist. She was a gambling addict and was in debt. She tried to see patterns in horse racing and predict the winner of horse races using the analytical engine. Unfortunately data wasn’t oil back then and her models gave her terrible results leading to more debts.
One of the perks of becoming the CEO of IBM is to get membership at the famous Augusta National golf club as IBM has been the sponsor of the Augusta Masters golf tournament for a long time… Maybe not if you are a woman. Ginni Rometty was the first female head of IBM, but didn’t receive the golf club membership. It was only after raised eyebrows and murmurs of a sponsorship withdrawal, did the all-male club provide Ginni a membership. Women need to go through a lot to get to the top, but still do not enjoy all the perks from it.
Valuations of Canva have skyrocketed recently and has made its founder Melanie Perkins a billionaire. But it wasn’t always easy. Her startup was based in Perth and getting meetings, let alone funding was difficult. She learnt that most VC types indulge in kite surfing - so she picked that up as a hobby. To get a seat at a table to give her startup pitch, Melanie had to tread treacherous waters. If that isn’t a metaphor for women in tech, we don’t know what is.