With Thanksgiving in the US being tomorrow, I wanted to take some time to thank some of the women in tech that I deal with and who are active in my local and regional tech communities. These are some of the women that I have met and have learned from them or been inspired by them or their social presence.

Jennifer Marsman

She’s a super-accomplished developer evangelist for Microsoft here in the Heartland District. Whether it’s hosting a hackathon or writing an app like ELIZA or just getting involved in general, it’s great to see Jennifer’s excitement for tech and the amazing things she comes up with! She also has a family and juggles the roles of mother and wife, and she’s one of the ones I look up to as I embark on the journey of balancing that many roles.

Carey Payette

She’s a developer evangelist for Telerik and lives in the Heartland District as well. Whether she’s blogging, speaking, or even organizing events, she’s always on the go. And when she isn’t doing stuff in the tech community, she’s also a mother and wife, and like Jennifer, she’s one of the ones I look up to as well.

Pieri Levandofsky

I recently met Pieri through Working Women Connection, and I understand now why my fellow local chapter ladies thought of her when they first met me. She has been running her own computer consulting company for awhile. Pieri is involved in a variety of local groups, and she’s always up for teaching people how to benefit from tech, how to approach tech, and how to make tech less scary. I’m working with her on her event on March 29, where we will be showing women how to use Office tools and tablets to increase their productivity. When Pieri isn’t doing community work, she’s not only a mom and a wife, but she’s also a grandmother!

These are just some of the inspirational women in the local and regional tech community. I look forward to being inspired by more. I am very thankful for these ladies, as they’ve been great influences on me. Hope you all have a happy and enjoyable Thanksgiving! (And for those who don’t celebrate, then have a happy and enjoyable Thursday!)

This is the last of the women from my History of Women in Tech presentation that I’m going to mention in this series, at least for now. If you want to see the other ladies mentioned - including the ladies of the ENIAC, Barbara Liskov, and Frances Allen - you can check out my presentation over on SlideShare. (And yes, for those of you wondering, this was a recorded session, but InfoQ won’t be releasing the Strangeloop presentations for a few months yet. When the presentation is live, I will be Tweeting about it, so follow me at @sadukie for more details.)

While Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper are no longer with us, I wanted to also focus on some women who are with us and active today. When I read up on Mary Lou Jepsen, my inner geekette was psyched to see such an interesting story!

Tell us about Dr. Jepsen’s interesting story.

The first thing that caught my mind while researching Dr. Jepsen was her focus areas for her degrees. From art to optical sciences and then applying those to technology, Dr. Jepsen has quite a story. Check out this list:

• Bachelors Degree in Studio Art & Electrical Engineering
• Masters Degree in Holography
• Ph D in Optical Sciences

Some of the things that she’s done in her career include:

• Co-founder of the One Laptop per Child project
  • Deployed XO laptops - lowest-power and most environmentally friendly laptops - in over 50 countries in 25 languages.
    • Laptop with sunlight-readable display
    • Ultra-low power management system
  • Every child in Uruguay got one
• Founder of Pixel Qi - focusing on low-cost, low-power LCD screens
• Head of the Display Division, Google X Lab

With her varied background, you can see her contributions in:

• Head-mounted displays (devices similar to Google Glass)
• HDTV
• Projectors
• Holographic video systems

So wait… she’s out there today and doing cool stuff. Does she have a website?

She does! Check out her site at: http://www.maryloujepsen.com/

While studying Computer Science & Engineering Technology in college, Grace Hopper’s name appeared in various parts of history. I recognized her name and some of her contributions to the field, but the part that wasn’t talked about in college was her military career. Add to it that I never looked up her picture, as I figured she was a figure of the past but no longer with us. This led to my awful post a few years ago, which to this day I feel very remorseful of. However, while preparing my History of Women in Tech talk, I delved a bit deeper into Admiral Hopper’s life.

Tell us about Grace Hopper’s diverse story.

• She served many roles:
  • Teacher - BA in Math & Physics, MA & PhD in Mathematics
  • Military Servant
    • Joined Navy WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service), commissioned as a lieutenant 6 months later
    • Taught for the US Naval Reserve while working for companies
    • Promoted to commodore in 1983, took the title of admiral in 1985 when the titles were merged.
    • Retired from the Navy in 1986
    • Buried with full Naval honors in 1992
  • Computer Genius
    • Worked on Mark I, Mark II, Mark III
    • Created 500-page Manual of Operations for the Automatic Sequence-Controlled Calculator
    • Worked on the first compiler, the A-O series
• She wanted to bring the computer to a much wider audience - not just to scientists 0 through programmer-friendly and application-friendly tools.
  • Promoted collaboration among the programmers on her teams.
  • Created FLOW-MATIC - using English to describe automatic billing and payroll calculations, the UNIVAC I and UNIVAC II could run these programs.
  • Worked on COBOL.
  • Promoted language validation, starting with COBOL. This led to national and international standards.

What can we learn from Admiral Hopper?

• Don’t be afraid to challenge “We’ve always done it that way.” Just because it’s been done that way in the past doesn’t make it right today.
• Collaboration with other developers tends to make life a lot easier.
• By bringing it down to plain English, computing is no longer just for programmers and mathematicians. It’s more approachable by non-technical people.

When I was creating my History of Women in Tech presentation for StrangeLoop 2013, Ada was the first person that came to mind. Reading up on her story, I can relate to her well.

Who was Ada Lovelace?

Augusta Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace made her impact in 1815-1852. While her father is the famous poet Lord Byron, her mother did not want her daughter following in his footsteps and did everything she could to make sure that Ada wouldn’t become a poet. Instead, her mother had her study traditionally-male-geared topics of maths and science. Ada once asked her mother

If you can’t give me poetry, can’t you give me “poetical science”?

Being born with that creative mind, Ada wanted to exercise her creativity. Ada was known for speaking in metaphors and also had a vivid imagination. For Ada, the combination of math, imagination, and metaphors would be a magical combination.

In 1828, Ada doodled a flying machine. A few years later, at 17 years old, she met her mentor - the famous mathematician, philosopher, inventor, and mechanical engineer Charles Babbage.

Ada and Babbage would exchange a lot of writing, between what he was working on and what she could come up with inspired by his works. Ada predicted in 1843 that Babbage’s Analytical Engine would eventually be used to:

• Compose complex music
• Produce graphics
• Practical & scientific use

Her predictions may not have come true then, but modern analytical engines do allow those functions and more!

Ada documented Babbage’s Analytical Engine and also created what is known as the first computer program. Her program calculated a sequence of Bernoulli numbers with the engine.

She also managed to have a personal life outside of the technical realm. Ada was the wife of the Earl of Lovelace, hence her title Lady Lovelace. While she was working with Babbage, she also had another important job - being a mom to 3 children under the age of 8!

What did you learn from Ada’s story?

• Choose a mentor who you’re interested in learning from and feed off of and into their energy.
• She had a male mentor - the mixed-gender mentoring system worked back then. I know many people are skeptical of mixed-gender mentoring relationships. Why can’t it work today?I have had many male mentors in my career, and I’ve found them to be great guys to learn from and also encourage. Whether they were database admins, IT admins, business owners, software developers, public speakers, or some other background, they’ve been able to offer guidance that has proven invaluable throughout my career. I personally have been blessed with my mixed-gender mentoring relationships.
• Moms sometimes find a balance between their personal life and their career.I am still young and finding my footing on this one. I have a 1.5 year old - definitely nowhere near the 3 kids under 8. But I’m slowly finding that balance for me.