Celebrating the Trailblazing Women Who Redefined the Landscape of Technology 

To commemorate Women’s History Month, FSU ITS is recognizing these pioneering women for their remarkable contributions to society. Women have influenced technology in numerous ways throughout history, despite often facing barriers in the field. Some of the women who have made significant contributions infiltrating the field of technology include:  

1. Ada Lovelace— Ada Lovelace is known to be one of the biggest contributors to the tech industry, credited with being the first known computer programmer. When she met Charles Babbage, the creator of the analytical engine, she became fascinated by the device. In time, she added her own notes and ideas to it, including a program to calculate the sequence of numbers. She envisioned the potential of the machine beyond mere calculations and created something far ahead of her time. She received many awards and was even honored by the U.S. Department of Defense when they named a computer language after her by the name of “Ada”.
2. Katherine Johnson— Katherine Johnson was an American mathematician who helped calculate the orbital mechanics at NASA for many different spaceflights. She worked at NASA for 33 years and paved the way for women who sought to work in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). 
3. Donna Dubinsky-— The woman responsible for introducing smartphones to our modern world is none other than Donna Dubinsky, Harvard Business School alum. She brought the first smartphone, the Palm Pilot, to the market and allowed phones to be able to store data and access programs, like a calendar, interactive games and an expense tracker. 
4. Karen Sparck Jones— Karen Sparck Jones laid the foundation for the ways we interact with search engines daily. She introduced the use of thesauri in data processing, allowing for similar words and phrases to be recognized by the computer. She also introduced the method of “term weighing," to find information most relevant to the query. “Google-ing” would not be quite the same without the contributions she made to the information retrieval process.
5. Mary Allen Wilkes— Mary Allen Wilkes is who we must thank for the opportunity to work from anywhere. Not only did she develop the first “personal computer” (PC), but while programming another device, she took it home to write the operating system. In essence, she made working remotely an option for all of us in the modern workplace.  

These are just some of the countless remarkable women in technology who have left an indelible mark on history, paving the way for innovation. From Ada Lovelace's groundbreaking algorithms to Mary Wilkes’s operating system, women have continually challenged barriers and reshaped the technology landscape. As we celebrate Women's History Month and honor the trailblazing women who have shaped our past, let us also look forward with anticipation to the boundless possibilities that women will continue to bring to the future of technology.