Ada Lovelace Day - Grace Hopper
By Shiny on 24 March 2009
Today is Ada Lovelace Day, "an international day of blogging to draw
attention to women excelling in technology".
To take part
All you need to do is sign the pledge, pick your tech heroine and then publish your blog post any time on Tuesday 24th March 2009. It doesn’t matter how new or old your blog is, what gender you are, what language you blog in, or what you normally blog about - everyone is invited.
Here is my Heroine:
Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper was a computer scientist and United States Naval officer.
She developed the first compiler for a computer programming language.
Because of the breadth of her accomplishments and her naval rank, she is sometimes referred to as "Amazing Grace".
In the 1970s, she pioneered the implementation of standards for testing computer systems and components, most significantly for early programming languages such as FORTRAN and COBOL. The Navy tests for conformance to these standards led to significant convergence among the programming language dialects of the major computer vendors. In the 1980s, these tests (and their official administration) were assumed by the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), known today as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
1969 – She won the first "man of the year" award from the Data Processing Management Association.
1971 – The annual "Grace Murray Hopper Award for Outstanding Young Computer Professionals" was established in 1971 by the Association for Computing Machinery.
1973 – She became the first person from the United States and the first woman of any nationality to be made a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society.
1986 – Upon her retirement she received the Defense Distinguished Service Medal.
1987 – She became a Computer History Museum Fellow Award Recipient.
1988 – She received the Golden Gavel Award at the Toastmasters International convention in Washington, DC.
1991 – She received the National Medal of Technology.
1996 – USS Hopper (missile destroyer, warship) was launched. Nicknamed Amazing Grace, it is on a very short list of U.S. military vessels named after women.
By Gary LaPointe (not verified) on Tue, 24/03/2009 - 17:35
I see we picked the same topic for today!
By Carolyn (not verified) on Tue, 24/03/2009 - 21:11
Hey, Brenda,
Looks like Grace was a popular heroine for us Kiwis:
http://sandersgeek.blogspot.com/2009/03/in-honour-of-ada-lovelace-day-po...
By Anonymous (not verified) on Fri, 27/03/2009 - 13:58
She is so funny at first i didnt know who she was!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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