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Ada Lovelace Day

Ada Lovelace Day, held on the second Tuesday in October every year, is an international celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). It aims to increase the profile of women in STEM and highlight role models who will encourage more girls into STEM careers and support women already working in STEM. The day of celebration was founded in 2009 by Suw Charman-Anderson.

Who was Ada Lovelace?

By Margaret Sarah Carpenter – [1], Public Domain
Born in 1815, Ada Lovelace collaborated with inventor Charles Babbage on the design of the Analytical Engine, an early general-purpose computing machine. In 1843, she published a set of instructions for calculating Bernoulli numbers, which is now recognised as one of the first computer programs. Although Babbage had created parts of programs before this, Lovelace’s was the first to be fully developed and published.

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For the kids

If you have young children curious about science, they’ll enjoy Ada Twist, Scientist by Andrea Beaty, illustrated by David Roberts. The story is about curious Ada Marie, who asks loads of questions and has the traits of a good scientist. One day, when she notices a bad smell, she uses the scientific method to investigate the cause. Taking her inspiration from Ada Lovelace, the pioneer mathematician and programmer, the author Andrea Beaty, with illustrator David Roberts, has created an inspirational and entertaining book (Interest age 4-8; Reading age 7+)