Happy International Women in Engineering Day! The day was started back in 2013 by the U.K.-based Women’s Engineering Society with the intention of giving women in engineering a public profile, given that they are underrepresented in the field. If you’re reading this, you have innovations created by women to thank. Here are five facts about women in engineering. 1. Women have been in engineering for 175 years British mathematician Ada Lovelace was one of the first female computer programmers. She worked with inventor Charles Babbage on his Analytical Engine. She produced the first published algorithm, which gave rise to modern computing. Quite a feat, considering this was back in 1843. Ada Lovelace 2. Your smartphone runs on technology designed by a woman If you’re reading this on your smartphone, you can thank Sophie Wilson. Wilson, an English computer scientist, helped develop the Acorn Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) Machine (ARM) processor. This processor paved the way for modern smartphones. 3. Women have a stake in space exploration A number of women have contributed to NASA missions. Miriam Mann was one of the first African-American “computers” hired by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), NASA’s predecessor, in 1943. Other women of color, including Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson and Katherine Johnson, would later join. And during NASA’s Apollo mission, computer scientist Margaret Hamilton led the development of onboard flight software. 4. Women make up just 12-17% of engineers worldwide Women are still underrepresented when it comes to engineering as a career.…
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