10 female tech innovators you may not have heard of

From the early 19th century to the present day, women have played crucial roles in the development of technology, however they are systematically underrepresented – and underpaid – in STEM industries today. 

Part of the problem is that female pioneers of computing, programming, mathematics, and science have largely been written out of history by the technology industry, meaning their stories have at best been forgotten, and at worst, intentionally erased. 

Many will be surprised to discover, for example, that computing was traditionally regarded as a feminized role, with women making up the largest trained technical workforce in the computing industry from the Second World War to the 1970s. Women were seen as the ideal ‘drone’ worker to operate computers, and as they were expected to leave work to start a family at a young age, managers didn’t feel obligated to offer them any career prospects. 

It was women who operated the monolithic, room-sized early computers used to calculate ballistics and crack enemy codes during the war, and when computers made their way into the workplace it was women who worked behind the scenes to ensure governments were able to collect data. It was a woman who sent the first manned US spaceflight into orbit.

Despite the early success of these early innovators, as male managers began to realize the importance of computers in the 1970s, women were pushed out of the industry, and their roles were given to men for higher pay. Women weren’t trusted with the very technical work they had pioneered. 

The whitewashing of women’s role in the early tech industry means bias still exists today, on a huge scale. Google has been accused of underpaying women systematically, and in the US just 10% of women held the highest-ranking jobs in the industry as of April this year. Who knows what this percentage would be if the female computing workforce hadn’t been written out of history.

If the tech industry is to become more diverse, it’s vital that we celebrate the female technology pioneers of the past, and the women making a difference in the industry today. So let us introduce you to 10 inspiring female tech pioneers…

Widely regarded as the world’s first computer programmer, Augusta Ada King-Noel, Countess of Lovelace was a 19th century mathematician and writer. Born in 1815 in London, she was the only legitimate child of Romantic poet Lord Byron and his wife Lady Wentworth, and was encouraged by her mother in particular to pursue her interest in mathematics. 

As a teenager, she befriended Charles Babbage (who’s sometimes known as ‘the father of computers’), and began work on his proposed general purpose computer, the ‘analytical Engine’. During this work she hypothesized applications for the computer beyond pure number-crunching, and published the very first example of an algorithm to be used by a machine. She even predicted the use of computers to compose music.

Although some (mostly male) biographers and historians have refuted the extent of Lovelace’s contribution to computing, her work paved the way for Alan Turing work’s on the first modern computers during World War II. Sadly, she died young at 36 due to uterine cancer. A rare first edition of her pioneering algorithm was sold last month for nearly £100,000.

Morgan Mercer is the founder of Vantage Point, and she created a virtual reality demonstration on sexual harassment. Her goal was to address the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace, which Stop Street Harassment reported 38% of women and 13% of men have experienced.

As a two-time survivor of sexual violence, Mercer was all too aware of how difficult it can be to talk about. Her pioneering technology immerses the user in a virtual workplace, where they become witness to sexual harassment taking place and can learn about how to tackle these situations in a professional and empathetic manner.