Women offer each other a helping hand

By Rebecca Stiffe

The Ada Lovelace Initiative (A.L.I) is searching for support from female technologists in Galway following their first anniversary celebration.

The Initiative by Verify Recruitment aims to connect female professionals working in technology with Transition Year students to present an insight into working in the industry and address the main factor contributing to the low numbers of women entering Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) careers: lack of visibility and access to female roles in the field.

So far A.L.I has reached 3000 students in 14 counties since the free school visits began last October, with over 100 leading women from 75 technology companies in Ireland registered as volunteers for A.L.I.

The name of the initiative is an ode to Ada Lovelace, widely regarded as the first computer programmer for her work on Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine in the 1800s.

Senior Product Manager at Altify Ireland Louise Bernstein aims to encourage girls to sit at the tech table and be part of the tech future.

“Today, no matter the career path girls choose – from chemical engineering to organising music festivals – tech will be in the background automating, speeding up, integrating and uncovering new ways to achieve goals,” she said.

Local technology professional for IBM Louise Glavey gave an A.L.I talk to Salerno Secondary School students recently, whose main challenge was making her career story relatable to the young women listening.

The students were interested to know that she did not consider herself to be particularly good at mathematics, yet she applied for a split degree in Applied Languages with Computing at UL knowing that it would stand to her.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.