Ada Lovelace Day
Ada Lovelace was born in 1815 to Anne Isabella "Annabelle" Byron and Lord George Gordon Byron. Lord Byron did not feature much in her life directly, separating from Annabelle and Ada about a month after Ada was born. Despite this, Ada's father was always a source of fascination for her. She eventually asked to be buried beside him, despite never really meeting him.
Annabelle did not have a particularly close relationship with her daughter but she did insist that her studies focus on maths and logic and tried to forbid her from reading literature, as she feared she might inherit of her father's extreme moods. Though Ada did study and excel in maths Annabelle's efforts were mostly in vain as Ada quickly developed a rebellious nature.
She met Charles Babbage when she was 18, who introduced her to his Difference Engine and his Analytical Engine, upon which she would eventually do some of her most important work. The Analytical Engine was in essence the first programmable computer and while Babbage designed the machine itself, Lovelace was responsible for the majority of the programs which it would eventually run. Perhaps her most important algorithm was one developed to calculate a sequence of Bernoulli numbers, which was in essence the first piece of software ever developed.
Ada Lovelace Day is a celebration of the contributions women have made to science and technology throughout history. We encourage everyone to celebrate the day, the hub of which can be found here.
