INSIGHT
THROUGH THE YEARS Annie Maunder was the pioneering British astronomer who made many extraordinary discoveries , like taking the first ever photograph of the Sun ’ s outer layer with a camera she designed herself . She should be as well-known as Patrick Moore , but in the early 20th century women were not permitted to work in science so her trailblazing work was credited to her husband . As a result her contributions have mostly been confined to dusty antiquarian books . Perhaps better known is Ada Lovelace , if only because of the day founded in her name in 2009 - a mere 157 years after she died - to celebrate the achievements of women in STEM . She was the world ’ s first computer programmer and the first person to come up with the idea that these machines could be used for things other than maths , such as music . The debate rages on as to whether we ’ d have smartphones synced to iTunes if it wasn ’ t for her .
Later “ lady computers ” were hired during WWII while men were out at battle , to calculate complex algorithms helping to develop nuclear missiles
for the US government , among other things .
But after men returned from the war things changed . The computer boom and then the rise of gaming produced the largely male-centric tech industry we ’ re familiar with now .
TECH TODAY In 2003 Kalpana Chawla became the first Indian woman to go into space when she flew on the illfated Space Shuttle Columbia . She had faced a battle in the hugely conservative state of Haryana , where women were seen as little more than excess baggage who had to be married off as young as possible . “ In India there are very basic human rights challenges ,” explains Caroline Dowling , Business Group President of Flex ’ s Communications & Enterprise Compute division and
10 August 2017