Ada Lovelace Day Online 2020

Ada Lovelace Day on social media

Ada Lovelace Day, Tuesday 13 October 2020, went back to its roots with a day of blogging, Twittering and Facebooking, just like we did in 2009.

#ALD20 celebrated women, advocates and educators in STEM. We profiled 25 women working in STEM around the world who also work campaigning for gender equality in industry, academia and the community. We also profiled 25 organisations supporting women in STEM globally, and you can see our profiles on our blog.

We asked you to join in by highlighting our hidden advocates, the teachers, lecturers and professors, the researchers and technicians, the women you work with, who go above and beyond to encourage and support girls and women in STEM. Who are the unsung heroines whose work is changing the future face of STEM?

You can write a blog post, record a podcast, or take part on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or any other social media platform – the choice is yours. And just like back in 2009, we created a database and you can still give us your links for posterity.

Ada Lovelace Day webinars

We ran five webinars on Ada Lovelace Day and you can watch all five of them at the links below.

Sustainable Energy & Water

How do we develop sustainability in energy and water policy? What are our biggest challenges and successes so far? Join us for a lively discussion about the state of sustainable energy and water with Kaapua Smith, Head of Sustainability for Contact Energy, Andy Blair, the President of the International Geothermal Association and a founder member of Women In Geothermal (WING), Dr Eva Abal, Chief Executive Officer at International RiverFoundation, and Dr Deborah Nias, CEO at Murray Darling Wetlands Working Group Ltd. Watch the recording and find out more about our speakers.

Medicine’s Biggest Questions

What are the most important medical questions facing humanity today, and how close are we to answering them? We’ll be talking with Prof Ijeoma Uchegbu, UCL School of Pharmacy, Dr Mariam Jamal-Hanjani, Clinical Research Fellow at UCL Cancer Institute, Dr Freya Harrison, Associate Professor at the University of Warwick, and Dr Jen Edwards, University Academic Fellow in Musculoskeletal Medical Technologies at the University of Leeds to talk about the biggest medical questions, and how scientists are attempting to answer them. Watch the recording and find out more about our speakers.

Ada Lovelace Day with Lori Beer

Celebrate Ada Lovelace Day with Lori Beer (above), Global Chief Information Officer for JP Morgan Chase & Co., who will be in conversation with ALD’s Founder, Suw Charman-Anderson.

Lori will be talking about her career in technology, including how she got into tech, and what advice she’d have for her younger self. She’ll also be talking about why she chose to create a scholarship to support women in STEM and why young women should study technology. Watch the recording and find out more about Lori Beer.

The Near Future

What does the near future hold for us? What will the impact of technologies like AI and robotics be? Join us for a lively discussion about what the near future holds for us, with Dr Beth Singler, Junior Research Fellow in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Cambridge, Prof Praminda Caleb-Solly, Professor of Assistive Robotics and Intelligent Health Technologies at the University of the West of England, Dr Anat Caspi, director of the Taskar Center for Accessible Technology, University of Washington, and Dr Chanuki Seresinhe, visiting data science researcher at The Alan Turing Institute. Watch the recording and find out more about our speakers.

Space, the Next Frontier

How do we responsibly and sustainability explore space? Join us for a lively discussion about preserving the Moon and more, with Michelle Hanlon, Co-Founder and President of For All Moonkind, Inc., Verania Echaide Navarro, Mexican Space Agency, Alyssa Saenz, Robotics Flight Controller for the International Space Station at NASA, Dr Yajaira Sierra-Sastre, Project Manager for Mars Spring Tires, Sample Retrieval Lander Mission at NASA. Watch the recording and find out more about our speakers.

Please do share our webinar videos on social media!

Our 50 hour content extravaganza

#ALD20 was, as always, a global event. We began our celebration at midnight in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, on Kiritimati Island, when Ada Lovelace Day begins. Also known as Christmas Island, the coral atoll is situated in the Line Islands and is a part of the Republic of Kiribati.

We carried on posting content to our blog, Twitter and Facebook until midnight roled around 50 hours later on Baker Island and Howland Island, two uninhabited atolls which are actually further west than Kiritimati Island but which sit on the other side of the International Date Line.

We would like to thank J.P. MorganRed HatJane StreetThe IETGoogle CloudSchoolDashDigital Science and Vonage for their support of Ada Lovelace Day this year.