Ada Lovelace Day

Ada Lovelace Day is an annual event held on the second Tuesday of October to celebrate and raise awareness of the contributions of women to STEM fields. It is named after mathematician and computer science pioneer Ada Lovelace. It started in 2009 as a "day of blogging" and has since become a multi-national event with conferences.[1][2]

Frosted cake featuring iconic portrait of Ada Lovelace and text Ada Lovelace Day 2013.
Cake made to celebrate Ada Lovelace Day at a 2013 Edit-a-thon held in Oxford, England.

History

The day was founded in the United Kingdom in 2009 by Suw Charman-Anderson on the second Tuesday in October as a means of raising awareness about the contributions of women to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.[3][4][5]

In 2022, Charman-Anderson announced that this would be the last year in which the organization that she founded, Finding Ada, would organize an annual flagship Ada Lovelace Day event in England.[6][7]

Since its inception, Ada Lovelace Day has become international in scope,[8] with events organized by groups ranging from museums,[9] professional societies, universities, colleges and high schools. While Ada Lovelace Day is the second Tuesday of October, events celebrating women in STEM typically span the period of October and November, and include diverse activities ranging from in-person and virtual Wikipedia Editathons[10] to panel discussions and film screenings.

Two people working together intently on two laptops
Participants Uta Frith and Katie Chan at an Ada Lovelace Day event sponsored by Wikimedia UK in 2012.
Suw Charman-Anderson speaking to a person.
Suw Charman-Anderson, founder of Ada Lovelace Day, at an event in 2012.

While this celebration of the often overlooked contributions of women in STEM was named for Ada Lovelace,[11] activities have expanded since 2009 to highlight the diverse contributions of women in STEM over time and different countries. Events have featured policy initiatives and scholarship relating to equity, diversity and inclusion that provide spaces and platforms for dialogue and discussion about how unconscious bias(es) function to create barriers to women's participation and advancement in the professional fields of STEM.[12]

References
  1. "Celebration of women in science and tech ending". BBC. 11 October 2022.
  2. "Ada Lovelace Day: We should never forget the first computer programmer". The Independent. 13 October 2020.
  3. Gage, Suzi (13 October 2015). "Why Ada Lovelace Day matters". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 November 2022.
  4. "Ada Lovelace Day: how much do you know about women in science? – quiz". The Guardian. 14 October 2014. Retrieved 3 November 2022.
  5. Sait, David (14 October 2014). "Ada Lovelace Day". Royal Society of Chemistry. Retrieved 3 November 2022.
  6. "Last Ever Ada Lovelace Day". www.i-programmer.info. Retrieved 3 November 2022.
  7. Bulbul, Nuray (11 October 2022). "Ada Lovelace Day: who was the mathematician and what is she known for?". Evening Standard. Retrieved 4 November 2022.
  8. Barbaschow, Asha (7 April 2022). "A Group of Aussie Women Are Editing Wikipedia Pages for a Good Cause". Gizmodo. Australia. Retrieved 3 November 2022.
  9. "Women Innovators in Aviation and Space: Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon". National Air and Space Museum. 28 October 2011. Retrieved 3 November 2022.
  10. Hern, Alex (4 March 2014). "Wikipedia 'edit-a-thon' seeks to boost number of women editors". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 November 2022.
  11. Maggs, Sam (14 October 2014). "Ada Lovelace Day: A Brief History Of Her Extreme Radness". The Mary Sue. Retrieved 3 November 2022.
  12. Thomson, Freya (2 November 2022). "Why is Ada Lovelace Day so important?". Open Access Government.
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