Ada Lovelace Day: Where would we be without women in tech

Ada Lovelace Day is a welcome and necessary reminder of the need to celebrate women in technology. Aside from Ada Lovelace, who pioneered the first computer algorithm in 1843, there are countless women – many of whom I imagine you might not know heaps about – who created groundbreaking technologies we still use today.

• Shirley Ann Jackson, a physicist, is credited with being the mind behind telecommunications research that led to breakthroughs in caller ID and fibre optic cables.


• Hedy Lamarr, an actress and then inventor, co-created frequency hopping technology as a way to overcome radio jamming in the Second World War. This became the basis for future methods of wireless communication like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. 


• Radia Perlman, a computer programmer and network engineer, developed the Spanning Tree Protocol, which helps manage data traffic and prevent loops in large-scale computer networks. It’s widely regarded as a foundational aspect of the modern internet.

Credit where credit is due

According to Pitchbook, female-founded startups account for just 2.7% of venture capital funding in Europe. Adding a male founder brings that number up to 16.4%. That means over 80% of VC funding in Europe goes to male-only founded companies. This begs the question, how many STEM innovations are going under the radar?

Suw Charman-Anderson, the creator of Ada Lovelace Day, recently warned that the initiative itself is running out of funds and that women in tech-focused groups “can’t run on inspiration alone.” 

This rings true as Women Who Code, a popular US-based women in tech group, cited funding challenges following its sudden closure earlier this year. Without these communities advocating for women in the sector, those with the potential to make a real, lasting impact on the STEM industry might struggle even more than they would otherwise.

While female founders like Anne Boden (Starling) and Poppy Gustafsson (Darktrace) are hugely notable figures on the UK scene, they are still in the minority and don’t appear on the Sunday Times Rich List for example, which is increasingly populated by those who have had success with technology.

All of this aside, while we’re travelling along the right path in terms of equality within the tech industry, it’s vital we support female STEM founders and innovators. If pioneers like Shirley Ann Jackson, Hedy Lamarr, and Radia Perlman hadn’t received support and backing, imagine how much further behind we’d be.

So, think about which women you can support within your company and the wider industry. This stretches from mentoring and networking to giving credit where credit is due and encouraging them to reach their full potential. At Babel, we’ll continue advocating for female spokespeople and female-founded technology companies, today and every day.