Women's contribution to the Internet

Recently I have been going through an online course on Internet history where big names like Alan Turing, Tommy Flowers and Harold Keen were mentioned who were working at Bletchley Park during the World War II helping to break the encrypted messages used by the German military. The messages were valuable - it is estimated that the ability to break the Enigma cryptography, and read the messages, shortened the war and prevented a significant number of deaths.

I enjoyed the march through time in our course, however, I couldn’t help but ask myself, “What were the women doing while the men were out inventing the Internet?” I was struck by the absence of women from course lectures and taped interviews. I asked myself, could it be true that men did, in fact, invent the Internet?

My curiosity got the best of me so I googled women and the Internet and came up with a hilarious and informative article posted by Soraya Chealy on her Huffingtonpost.com blog titled, “NYT Just Doesn’t Get It: Men, Women and the Internet”. Her blog begins by criticizing an article in the New York Times that states, “MEN invented the Internet.” Thanks to Ms. Chealy’s article, I was introduced to the Ada Project, which is devoted to sharing information about “Pioneering Women in Computing Technology.” Skimming the entries, I read about the many women who contributed to the development of the Internet. I will only mention a few here.

Sister Mary Kenneth Keller

Reading the bio of Sister Mary Kenneth Keller who is thought to be the first woman to earn a Ph.D. degree in computer science, I was struck by the following entry,“As a graduate student, Keller also studied at Dartmouth, Purdue, and the University of Michigan. At Dartmouth, the university broke the “men only” rule and allowed her to work in the computer center, where she participated in the development of BASIC.” “Men only” rule in the computer center? Interesting that women were systematically denied access to computers at major universities.

Barbara H. Liskov

Another woman’s bio caught my eye, Barbara H. Liskov, an MIT professor who “created building blocks for software programming languages that were key to personal computers and the Internet.” Dr. Liskov was the first US woman to be awarded a PhD from a computer science department (Stanford, 1968) and the second woman to win the prestigious Turing Award (2008).

Ada Lovelace

Not only this,  have you heard of Ada Lovelace; she was a mathematician and daughter of Lord Byron. To her credit, she saw beyond the capabilities proposed by Charles Babbage and his mechanical, steam-powered (computer) "analytical engine." She envisioned more than simple computational abilities and was able to imagine the future of computers. Ada Lovelace was also credited as being the first programmer.

Judy Novak

Another woman who deserves mention I think is Judy Novak. She became a member of a computer incident response team in the late 1990's, and went on to write (with some others) the SANS course on Intrusion Detection, which is the worldwide standard security course/certification for people whose job it is to detect network intrusions.

Radia Perlman

Lastly, I would like to mention Radia Perlman, a network engineer who has been referred to as the “Mother of the Internet”. Dr. Perlman earned her Ph.D. in computer science from MIT. She is famous for her invention of the “spanning-tree protocol” which is fundamental for the operation of network bridges.

Women's accomplishments are sorely under-appreciated and underrepresented in discussions of the history of the Internet. The computer scientists mentioned above represent only a small number of the dozens of women who contributed to the development of the Internet and the field of computer science.

Though these people did not get the recognition they deserve, yet there are women who are still silently contributing to the society and technology and will keep doing so... All I can do is silently thank them for their huge contribution to the technology... Don't worry, you won't be forgotten...!!