(Infographic) Ada Lovelace Day Celebrates Women Leaders In Tech

ORIGINAL: Women2.0

By Angie Chang (Co-Founder & Editor-in-Chief, Women 2.0)
October 16, 2012 

The goal of Ada Lovelace Day is to create new role models for girls and women in these male-dominated fields by raising the profile of other women in STEM. (Science, technology, Education, Mathematics)

Today is Ada Lovelace Day – October 16, 2012 is about blogging and sharing stories of women, from engineers to scientists, from technologists to mathematicians. Who has inspired you?

Over the last year, a number of technical women have demonstrated leadership that propels them to the public sphere – from Jocelyn Goldfein (Director of Engineer, Facebook), an advocate for women to enter and stay in rewarding, high-achieving technology careers; Clara Shih (Founder and CEO of Hearsay Social) was 29 years old last year when she was appointed to the board of Starbucks. Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer makes headlines and changes perceptions of CEOs of large tech companies on a daily basis. (Don't forget IBM's CEO Virginia Rometty. EE from Northwestern University)

 IBM's CEO Virginia Rometty

What do these women have in common? Computer science degrees from Stanford. But you don’t need to have gone to Stanford or received an undergraduate degree in computer science.

There are post-baccalaureate ways to learn how to become a programmer or scientist at any age.

Accelerated software development training program Hackbright Academy is teaching 20something and 30something women to become working Python programmers in 10 weeks flat. There are Ladies Learning Code in Toronto and Girl Develop It classes around the United States. Or sign up for a daily dose of tech from Skillcrush.

There is no better time than now with advent of Coursera and Codecademy – great classes are available online for the eager to learn. Soak up knowledge for free like a sponge!

Women have blazed trails in STEM since the days of yore. What do you think you can accomplish?What would you do if you were not afraid? Check out the infographic for a retrospective on how women have blazed paths in technology and other male-dominated fields: