I love this image. Unfortunately, it heralds what seems to be the last Ada Lovelace Day (ALD) according to the Women’s Tech Hub ~ Bristol,

Posted on 9th October 2022 by serrie

Happy Ada Lovelace Day – sadly the last!

This year, Ada Lovelace Day was celebrated on October 11, 2022 as Sue Gee notes in her ALD post on programmer.info (Note: Links have been removed),

Last Ever Ada Lovelace Day

Today [October 11, 2022] sees the final ever Ada Lovelace Day, an event which aims to raise the profile of women in science, technology, engineering and maths. The flagship event, combining science and comedy from an all-female line up takes place online starting at 8:00pm London time

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Ada Lovelace Day (ALD) was founded by Suw Charman-Anderson in 2009 and became an international event celebrating the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM).

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So why was a nineteenth century aristocrat chosen to be the symbol of an effort to inspire women to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and maths, STEM?

The answer is that, due to her involvement with Charles Babbage, she is widely regarded as the person who wrote the first computer program, for more on this theme see our history article, Ada Lovelace, The First Programmer. This achievement has been widely popularized, including in children’s books, making hers a name that girls might recognize.

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While the Finding Ada Network, which provides one-to-one mentorship for women in STEM and advocates who work towards gender equality, appears to be continuing, this year’s Ada Lovelace Day is the final such event due to lack of financial backing. Suw Charman-Anderson told the BBC the reason it was now coming to an end was:

“incredibly simple – we just couldn’t raise the funding to continue”. 

The announcement about the last Ada Lovelace Day is here in an October 11, 2022 BBC tech news item. Suw Charman-Anderson’s Finding Ada (Lovelace) website is here, where oddly enough I was not able to find confirmation that 2022 is the last year for ALD.

I have a lot of Ada Lovelace postings here but this October 13, 2015 post stands out for me, ‘Ada Lovelace “… manipulative, aggressive, a drug addict …” and a genius but was she likable?‘

Farewell Ada Lovelace Day.