No Web Without Women
Ada Lovelace wrote the first algorithm for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine, a general-purpose mechanical computer built in the 1830s. She recognized a much more enormous potential for a machine intended to perform calculations. As a mathematician of the early 19th Century, Lovelace brilliantly projected that numbers could be used to represent information other than quantity, in effect writing the first piece of computer software. For her contributions, she has been regarded by many as an early prophet of the internet age.
Hedy Lamarr, with the help of composer George Antheil, designed a “signal hopping” system that allowed militaries to send secure, unblockable radio signals during World War II. The system was patented in 1942 and additionally implemented by the US Navy in the 1960s to prevent the jamming of signals when firing torpedoes. This spread spectrum technology was paramount in the development of the wireless communication implemented in WiFi, BlueTooth, and GPS. Without Lamarr’s contributions, none of this technology would be possible.
Grace Hopper was a pioneer of computer programming and the inventor of the first compiler, a utility program completed in 1952 that converted English terms into machine code understood by computers. Her contributions were a catalyst for massive advancements in the early days of computer programming. A rear admiral in the US Navy, Hopper aided in the war effort as one of the programmers for the Mark I computer during World War II. In addition to the compiler, Hopper assisted in the development of COBOL, an early high-level programming language that built upon her FLOW-MATIC language.
