The Women Who Shaped The Computer Age

One key element of The Innovators, Walter Isaacson's new book on technological history and culture — and the focus of an upcoming World Science Festival event — is the unsung contributions that women have been making since the earliest days of computers. The book opens and closes with Ada Lovelace, who channeled her imagination and gift for numbers into a love for "poetical science" (apropos, given that she was the daughter of Lord Byron) and is often recognized as the author of the first computer program.The history of women and computers is hard to compile, because many key contributions...