Margaret Hamilton – Director of Software Engineering Division (MIT)
Margaret Hamilton (Born in 1936) was the director of the Software Engineering Division at MIT. She was responsible for creating the software(literally from scratch!!!) for the Apollo Guide Computer in the Apollo Space Program. And the experience was utterly new. According to her, “When I first got into it, nobody knew what it was that we were doing. It was like the Wild West. There was no course in it. They didn’t teach it.”
Margaret Hamilton didn’t just stop there! She went on to create the Universal Systems Language based on her experience of writing software for the Apollo program and also founded a company for that, Hamilton Technologies, Inc. For her phenomenal achievements, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by US President Barack Obama in 2016, which is the highest civilian honor in the United States.
Fun Fact: The term Software Engineering was coined by Margaret Hamilton to establish it as an engineering field in its own right (Which it wasn’t at the time!!!).
5 Women Programmers Who Changed The World!
Did you know that the First Computer Programmer was a Woman?
Well, you probably don’t (I didn’t either!). So let me enlighten you today! Ada Lovelace was a mathematician in Victorian Times (Yes that long ago!) and she is credited as being the First Computer Programmer Ever. In her own words:
That brain of mine is something more than merely mortal; as time will show.
And this is true for the many women that have contributed to the rich history of Computer Programming and are yet forgotten by the modern world. So this article attempts to introduce some of these amazing women that made significant contributions to Computer Programming and in the process helped change the world!