Role models and enablers

November 13, 2024

30in30, women-in-tech

This post is part of my 30in30 challenge, where I write 30 minutes every day for 30 working days. Due to my limited time for this challenge, the content will be only very lightly researched and edited. The idea is to just write. Find my voice, and find the courage to publish. To follow my curiosity wherever it may take me.


I keep thinking about the importance of role models. I wrote about this topic in You Can't Be Who You Can't See, but I also hinted at it in another article. It's always on my mind.

But we don't just need role models. We also need enablers.

People who make things possible. Either by their actions, by their knowledge, or, sometimes, by their kind word. People that take a chance on you when you might not take a chance on yourself. People who see something in you, something you are just not ready to see yourself. People who believe in you before you are prepared to believe in yourself.

Where would we be if we didn't have such people in our lives? Perhaps we would be precisely where we are now. But perhaps not. It doesn't take much to be inspired by someone, but at the same time, it doesn't take much to lose faith and do something else instead.

Take Ada Lovelace. She was brilliant in her own right, but she also had an inspiring figure - Mary Somerville, a Scottish astronomer and polymath. Mary was Ada's math tutor, and whenever Ada struggled with a mathematical question, she would consult with Mary over a cup of tea. A very English way of problem-solving.

Not only was Mary Ada's tutor, but she also introduced her to Charles Babbage. The relationship with Charles and his work on the analytical engine led Ada to write her description for generating Bernoulli numbers - the first computer program ever to be published.

Karen Spärck Jones also had a similar person - Margaret Masterman. Karen described Margaret as "a very strange and interesting woman, rather exotic." Margaret founded and directed the Cambridge Language Research Unit (CLRU), and it was Margaret who inspired Karen to go into computer science.

Karen worked at the CLRU for 28 years until she retired in 2002, and it was there that she did most of her work in natural language processing and data retrieval.

As I learn more about women in tech, or more generally about women in STEM, I am sure I will keep finding their role models and enablers. And I will do my best to shine some light on them, to show the world that we all stand on the shoulders of giants, and these giants should be celebrated together with our own accomplishments.

To follow the path, look to the master, follow the master, walk with the master, see through the master, become the master.

A quote by Jianzhi Sengcan, a Chinese monk