Category Archives: woman in computing

The World’s Most Active ACM Student Chapters Video Series

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Episode 2: Cornell University ACM-W Student Chapter, USA

The representation of women and other underrepresented groups in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Medicine) fields has been a much debated topic throughout the tech industry and academia in recent times. With so much attention and effort made to improve representation within industry, student-led bodies are doing their part, if not more. One of these student organizations is WICC (Women In Computing At Cornell), whose core mission is to empower women to carve their own paths in the field of computer science.

WICC is one of the most recognized ACM-W Chapters in North America, and it works tirelessly toward its mission. Alongside some great individuals from their team,  over the past few months XRDS worked with WICC to find the best way to showcase their hardwork. Just as we featured the UPES ACM Student Chapter in our first video, we bring to you our second episode in the series, featuring the ACM-W chapter from Cornell University: WICC.

We hope you’ll enjoy seeing the video as much as we enjoyed making it! And please do visit their social media channels to learn more about them.

A Historical Account of Four Women who Made the Internet of Things Possible

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A Historical Account of Four Women who Made the Internet of Things Possible

The Internet of Things as a field has been continuously growing since 1982, when it was first thought of. Such is its speed of growth, however, that according to predictions there will be over 50 billion devices as a part of the IoT by 2020. This makes it tempting, in speaking of the field, to only focus on its present and on its future development, but I reckon it is always wise to take a moment to also reflect on the past, and to remember the people who pioneered it.

An old and heteronormative saying claims that “Behind every successful man, there is a woman”.  As a woman in CS myself, I don’t like that saying, but I espouse the thought of a similar one:  “Behind every successful innovation, there is also a woman“.  Given our modern ideals of gender equality and progress, it is not always enough to generically look back at the people who paved the way for the IoT; sometimes we have to specifically remember the media-overlooked women who did so, and to give them credit where it’s due.

The Internet of Things refers to the intelligent interconnection of various devices and machines to a larger network, or the Internet. While it comes with its  own set of inherent risks, as does any technological innovation, it certainly aspires to make our lives simpler.

This was not the work of merely one man or one woman. The IoT came into existence because of the efforts of many different people, including women. Each person discovered or created something that enabled us to move one step closer to the Internet of Things as we know it today. For this simple reason, I have decided to dedicate this essay to not just one, but four different revolutionary female computer scientists, all of whom, I believe, were instrumental to the development of the IoT.

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Shafi Goldwasser’s Role in Securing the Internet of Things (IoT) 

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We keep hearing in today’s technology-driven world that advancements such as 3D printing, next-gen robots, and virtual reality are made everyday, but we often learn little about the real people behind these inventions. Instead, we are constantly exposed to false stereotypes such as “Women can’t code”, which is still not dead despite the increasing numbers of women who’ve succeeded in tech, currently and historically.

Notwithstanding their contribution, women continue to face discrimination in patriarchal societies, such as reduced opportunities for education, not being recognized as equal to men, and being prevented from holding high offices or posts that are stereotyped for men.  What keeps women going forward in the face of this adversity is the sheer human determination to perform and excel.

The archetypal poster woman in this argument, Ada Lovelace, was one of the first programmers. She had written a program in English to operate Bernoulli’s numbers, which can be taken as our modern day ‘algorithm.’ But people ought to understand that she was hardly the only one! Women have always been present in the field, contributing every step of the way since even before the advent of modern computers, it’s just that their work has not been widely publicized.

An area where women have made a significant difference was advancing the now-fashionable Internet of Things (IoT), and in particular addressing privacy and security concerns that arise with it. First let’s understand what the IoT is all about.

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