March 8th marks International Women’s Day and at Overclockers UK we’re celebrating all the women who have had a huge impact on technology.
We’ve highlighted five women in tech whose hard work and dedication to their fields paved the way for huge advancements in technology, gaming, and computing.
International Women’s Day
International Women’s Day (IWD) is all about celebrating the achievements made by women across every single industry. Without the huge expansive list of influential women, we wouldn’t have many of common items, programs, or games that we take advantage of.
Before we kick off with our list of the top five women who impacted technology, be sure to check out all our other previous celebrations for International Women’s Day. We’ve highlighted so many great industry queens, from pioneers in gaming to our favourite badass female characters in video games.
Ada Lovelace
Referred to as the first programmer, Ada Lovelace was an English mathematician and writer. Ada is one of the most famous women in technology, well known for working alongside Charles Babbage on the design of the Analytical Engine, the precursor to the computer. Lovelace wrote the first algorithm to be processed by a machine, laying the foundation for modern-day computing.
Born in the 1800s, Ada Lovelace came from a time period in which diversity and gender inclusion wasn’t heard of. Now, she has earned the recognition of being one of the most fundamental women in technology and computing. Even going so far as having the NVIDIA RTX 40 Series GPU architecture named after her!
Hedy Lamarr
Self-taught inventor and film actress, Hedy Lamarr is most well-known for helping to lay the foundations for Wi-Fi. Designed with the help of George Antheil, her ‘secret communication system’ was created to set radio-guided torpedoes off course during World War II. Her idea was successful, but also later inspired Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth technology. All of which are still used worldwide today.
Grace Hopper
Grace Hopper was a well renowned computer scientist, most known for her work as one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I and COBOL (Common Business-Orientated Language). Hopper received a PhD in mathematics and served as a Naval Reserve from 1943-1966. During her time in the Navy, she joined the Ecket-Machuly Computer Corp. Here she designed a compiler to translate programmer instructions into computer code and later the first English language data processing compiler. Once she had retired from the Navy, she was later recalled to help standardise the Navy’s computer languages. Hopper was the oldest officer in the Navy before she retired again in 1986.
Hopper’s impact on the computer industry is still felt today in 2024, with COBOL still being widely used. Plus, she helped to discover the world’s very first computer bug, a real-life moth that was trapped within a relay. The machine literally had to be debugged to resolve the issue.
Carol Shaw
Regarded as one of the first female video game developers, Carol Shaw worked for big-name gaming companies such as Atari and Activision. She loved playing text-based video games and earned a degree in Computer Science in 1970, when there were already very few women in the industry. Her love and passion for games meant she went on to create popular titles including 3D Tic-Tac-Toe (which only took her six months to make), Super Breakout, and River Raid.
Her successful work within the gaming industry has inspired many other women to get into the video game industry. Who knows, without Carol Shaw, we might not have had many of our other favourite female game developers…
Radia Perlman
Known as the ‘Mother of the Internet’, Radia Perlman created the algorithm behind the STP (Spanning Tree Protocol). The STP was hugely influential in creating the internet we love and use today possible. Perlman’s work allows us to now understand the way in which networks self-organise, move data, and even created the basic rules of internet traffic.
It is all because of Perlman that we can browse the internet, hunt down the latest crazy memes, and watch our favourite live streamers.
Namedrop Your Favourite
Share the love for some more influential women by namedropping your favourite in the comments. Be sure to share what impact they’ve had on technology, gaming, or computing.
- 4 min read
Ruth Rowley
Author
Ruth has been with Overclockers UK for over a year and has gone on to write about everything ranging from in-depth hardware guides to monthly game releases.
Outside of writing blog posts, she can be found wrapped in a blanket with her black cat, engrossed in a book or playing life-simulation games such as The Sims, Stardew Valley, and Animal Crossing.
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