By Ali Stripling, Senior Manger Community and Inclusion at Arm
It’s fair to say that if you looked around the offices of most tech companies, you would probably notice that there’s more men than women working, especially within technical roles. At Arm, our Ada Lovelace Day campaign focuses on celebrating women’s contributions to science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and inspiring younger generations through events and educational activities, such as working in partnership with GLAM.
Who is Ada Lovelace?
The Countess of Lovelace, Augusta Ada King — known today as Ada Lovelace — was the first person to publish what we now call a computer program in 1843. Lovelace’s program described how Bernoulli numbers might be calculated on Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, a mechanical computer which he designed but never built. Lovelace realized that the Analytical Engine could do more than just calculate numbers: it could also be capable of creating music and art. However, as we’re all aware, it would be another century before such computers were developed.
Why Ada Lovelace Day?
It was felt that due to Ada’s gender, she never received the recognition she should have for her contribution to computer programming. We at Arm, along with 1000s of others, honor her memory on Ada Lovelace Day each year by helping inspire children – and specifically girls – to consider STEM careers. And at Arm, we continue to support Ada Lovelace Day because, put simply, there is more work for all of us to do.
At Arm, we are committed to:
1. Strengthening the pipeline, because still not enough girls are choosing to continue to study STEM subjects, and if they do, they’re not choosing engineering as a career option. We have to invest in activities and partnerships that deliver meaningful impact.
2. Increasing the visibility of women working within Arm both internally and externally. We know that girls and young women benefit from mentors, sponsors and role models.
3. Helping young and experienced women to know that they have a career with us, by showcasing our opportunities
4. Attracting, recruiting and retaining women at Arm.
To achieve the above, we need everyone’s help. This Ada Lovelace Day, our company’s Team Arm Champions, Education Ambassadors and members of our Women’s Network are coming together to deliver events around the world. We’ll also be supporting GLAM London in November, building on our sponsorship of San Jose.
About Arm
Arm technology is at the heart of a computing and connectivity revolution that is transforming the way people live and businesses operate. Our advanced, energy-efficient processor designs have enabled intelligent computing in more than 145 billion chips and our technologies now securely power products from the sensor to the smartphone and the supercomputer. In combination with our IoT device, connectivity and data management platform, we are also enabling customers with powerful and actionable business insights that are generating new value from their connected devices and data.