主播大秀

Kim Chakanetsa explores the role that women played in the early days of computing and why female computer engineers became a rarity as the industry professionalised. They assess what, if anything, has changed for women entering the industry now.

Radia Perlman is an American computer programmer known in some circles as ‘the Mother of the Internet’ for her invention of the so-called spanning-tree protocol, an algorithm which enabled networks to cope with large amounts of data. The protocol she designed in the 1980s is still in use today. When Radia attended MIT in the late 60s she was one of just a few women in her class. She blames 'unconscious bias' for the fact that little has changed for female computer engineers over the years.

Tilly Blyth is Head of Collections and Principal Curator at the Science Museum. She specialises in the history of computing and the lost role women played within that history. She is an expert on the 19th century mathematician Ada Lovelace and the story of the first business computer at Lyons’ tea rooms in the UK. Tilly welcomes recent attempts in films like Hidden Figures to tell the stories of women behind the early development of computing.

• Produced by Sarah Kendal and Jo Impey for 主播大秀 World Service

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