This International Women’s Day we’re celebrating influential women in the rich history of the telecoms industry – which we now find ourselves at the forefront of.
Here’s our top 5 female telecoms stars!
Ada Lovelace (born 1815)
Mathematician Ada Lovelace was an associate of Charles Babbage and created a program for his digital computer prototype. She is said to be the first computer programmer.
Dr Grace Hopper (born 1906)
One of the first scientists to work with modern digital computers we would recognise today, she was behind the compiler, which could translate computer code, making programming quicker and transforming how computers worked.
Hedy Lamarr (born 1914)
Hedy Lamarr pioneered the technology that would one day form the basis for today’s WiFi, GPS, and Bluetooth communication systems.
Kathleen Booth (born 1922)
Kathleen Booth wrote the first assembly language and designed the assembler and autocode for the first computer systems at University of London. She helped design three different machines including the ARC (Automatic Relay Calculator), SEC (Simple Electronic Computer), and APE(X)C.
Dr Shirley Ann Jackson (born 1946)
In the 1970s, Shirley Ann Jackson invented caller ID and call waiting. Her telecoms breakthroughs lead others on to invent the portable fax, fibre optic cables and solar cells.
Without these pioneering women, our telecoms industry would look very different to how it does today!
Happy International Women’s Day 2023!
