Ada Lovelace Day is an international celebration acknowledging the achievements of women in STEM all around the world. The event was founded in 2009 due to a concern that women in the tech industry were invisible and has since aimed towards encouraging women and girls to pursue careers in STEM.
The inspiration for Ada Lovelace Day also stemmed from research carried out by psychologist Penelope Lockwood, which found that women needed to see female role models more than men needed to see male role models.
But instead of just highlighting the achievements and impact of just one, or a few privileged women in the industry, it's important to continue to make conscious and sustained effort to showcase a broader spectrum of women's successes in STEM if we are to make our computing role models representative and relatable.
To do this, we must not shy away from the equity gap in the technology industry when celebrating women in computing and exploring how we can fight the trends of under representation and discrimination. Today, women make up around half of the UK workforce, yet in the tech industry, a mere 24% of roles are filled by women, and over 77% of tech leaders are men (Tech UK, 2023).
To read the full blog and learn how you can make a difference, head to our blog on the National Centre of Computing Education page.