Rebooting the Ada Lovelace Mythos Valerie Aurora The Ada Initiative http://adainitiative.org [email protected] All content CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted The Ada Initiative About the Ada Initiative Mission: increase participation and status ● of women in open technology & culture Founded 2011 by Valerie Aurora and Mary ● Gardiner Projects: AdaCamp conference, ● conference anti-harassment, training Supported by individual donations ● http://supportada.org The Ada Initiative Ada Lovelace: the short version Wrote the world's first computer program ● in 1843 Lord Byron's daughter ● Died at age 36 after painful illnesses ● If she'd lived, maybe the computer age ● would have started in 1850, not 1950 The Ada Initiative My questions for this talk What are the stories we tell about Ada? What are the effects of those stories? What new stories could we tell? The Ada Initiative Outline of talk Cast of characters ● Biography of Ada ● Ada's reputation through history ● Suggestions for new stories to tell ● The Ada Initiative George Gordon, Lord Byron (Ada's father) The Ada Initiative Meet the Byrons “The Wicked Lord” “Mad, bad and dangerous to know” “Mad Jack” The Ada Initiative Dead at 36 The Ada Initiative Anne Isabella Milbanke (Ada's mother) The Ada Initiative The “Princess of Parallelograms” The Ada Initiative