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- 1 Ada Lovelace Day is an international annual event to commemorate Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, as an inspirational figure.
- 2 Cardano Community is among the most enthusiastic, to observe the occasion of the British mathematician and the world’s first computer programmer.
- 3 Women in STEM are acknowledged and celebrated this day by many tech giants including Google, Microsoft, Meta, NVIDIA, etc.
Ada Lovelace Day is an occasion of remembrance and reflection centering on the celebration, acknowledgment, and honor of the contributions of women in STEM. This year, the ceremonial occasion was celebrated on 10th October on an international level. Most prestigious names of the tech industry, including Google, Microsoft, and Meta celebrated the day.
Observed worldwide on the second Tuesday of October every year, it commemorates the achievements of British mathematician and the highly regarded computer programming pioneer, Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace.
The Cardano blockchain ecosystem deems it in a very special place, evident by the ticker they use for the ecosystem’s native coin– ADA. The Cardano community was convivial to eventfully observe the occasion, as is evident by the launch of their new wallet, Lace 1.6.
Cardano’s Tribute to Ada Lovelace
The Cardano community has always been an advocate for women in STEM, and time and again, have acknowledged their efforts, and made efforts themselves to promote them. Their enthusiasm regarding the growth of women and feminism is quite commendable. There is an inherent reason behind that. The entire blockchain economy, the Cardano Computation Layer, and the algorithms and infrastructure are very much based on the programs written by Ada.
Hence, they labeled their native token as ada, going by the ticker ADA. It doesn’t stop there; the smallest unit of the ADA, equal to 0.000001 ADA, is named Lovelace. The organization also provides a native wallet that’s called Lace. As a namesake of the British mathematician, the blockchain, thus, pays homage to the programming trailblazer woman’s computational connections adopted by it.
On the event of Ada Lovelace Day of October 2022, Input Output Global, the company behind Cardano, conducted a very successful online event to highlight the female-led projects deployed on Cardano. This year also, the company celebrated Ada Lovelace Day by launching a new and improved version of its Lace Wallet– Lace1.6.
Achievements of Augusta Ada King
Augusta Ada King, also known as Ada Lovelace, was born Augusta Ada Byron, to the renowned British poet, Lord Byron in 1815. She married William King in 1832, who became the Earl of Lovelace in Britain, and she became the Countess of Lovelace. She was deeply interested in mathematics from childhood and is renowned as the world’s first computer programmer today.
She is widely regarded for her work on the mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine, invented by Charles Babbage, the Father of Computer. Babbage’s Analytical Engine was an automatic mechanical calculator at the time. But Ada Lovelace is credited for being the first to develop it into a machine that had applications beyond just pure calculations.
After seeing Babbage’s Difference Engine prototype, she discovered that she could write certain words as codes that would direct the engine to perform an extensive sequence of mathematical operations. This led to the computer following a series of simple instructions, like a program, to perform a complex calculation. That’s how coding and algorithmic design were invented, which opened the floodgates for programming computer machines to perform more specified and generalized operations.
She developed an algorithm on Babbage’s Analytical Engine to compute Bernoulli numbers, which is considered the world’s first computer programming language. The Father of Computer, Charles Babbage, called her “the Enchantress of Number”. Lovelace’s inventive techniques spurred a revolution in computing that shaped today’s science and technology. Her contributions to mathematics and computer science have, thus, left a lasting impact that will echo through centuries to come.
Celebrating the Life and Achievements of the Trailblazer of Computer Programming
The state of women in STEM in today’s world is an often less acknowledged subject, where the stories, struggles, and achievements of women don’t get enough attention, and the effort to improve the situation. The success of these women is a testimony that the problem isn’t competence, rather it’s the societal structure that often puts barricades on the ambitions of women.
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, (1815-1852), serving as a stark inspiration for the generations of women to come, is celebrated every October. It’s an important occasion to raise much-needed awareness and remind everyone of the potential of this under-utilized half of the population.
The day was celebrated by many Silicon Valley behemoths besides Cardano. Google put their doodle of the day for the Countess of Lovelace. Microsoft kept displaying stories of Ada and other women in STEM on the Bing search engine. Other companies like Unilever, AMD, NVIDIA, etc. hosted events and workshops throughout the day.
The examples can be stretched throughout history till the present day— Ada Lovelace, Mary Curie, Rosalind Franklin, Lise Meitner, Grace Hopper, Ursula Burns, Elizabeth Stark, Marita Cheng, Nicole Muniz, Cathie Woods, and Sarah Clatterbuck, and plenty more to come.
Steve Anderson is an Australian crypto enthusiast. He is a specialist in management and trading for over 5 years. Steve has worked as a crypto trader, he loves learning about decentralisation, understanding the true potential of the blockchain.
