Rosie Curran Crawley at Ada Lovelace Day Live 2024. Photo: Paul Clarke.
Someone’s suggested that your company should sponsor Ada Lovelace Day, perhaps as part of your CSR or marketing work, and you’d like a quick and easy primer on what we do and who we help. Congratulations! You’re in the right place!
What is Ada Lovelace Day?
Held on the second Tuesday of October every year, Ada Lovelace Day is an international celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). On the day, we focus on two activities:
Ada Lovelace Day Live
Our flagship event showcases the work, research and talent of a variety of women from across the STEM landscape. Our specially selected speakers talk for about ten minutes about their specialty, sometimes with a comedic or musical contribution from a performer who straddles STEM and the arts.
Past speakers have included such luminaries as Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnel, Dame Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock, Maggie Philbin, Chi Onwurah MP, Prof Sophie Scott and Dr Hannah Fry.
The Ada Lovelace Day Online Blog Marathon
Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have published one blog post per hour in our 50-hour long online celebration. We’ve posted short biographies of modern and historic women which outline their achievements, as well as drawing attention to books and podcasts by, for or about women in STEM. You can read through our archives for 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2020 on our blog.
Who else celebrates?
Since 2011, people from around the world have organised their own grassroots events to celebrate Ada Lovelace Day. We have had over 1,000 events held in 239 towns and cities, across 41 different countries.
Events are organised by all sorts of organisations, from businesses to universities, museums, schools, learned societies, professional organisations and women’s groups. And we’ve had lots of different types of events, from Wikipedia Edit-a-Thons to cream teas in the village hall, from fun hands-on educational events for children to panel discussions and talks for adults, and everything in between.
What are Ada Lovelace Day’s goals?
Ada Lovelace Day’s goals are:
- To raise the profile of women in STEM
- To inspire girls and young women to study and pursue a career in STEM
- To encourage women, especially in the middle of their career, to stay in STEM
- To provide women in STEM with a platform to share their knowledge and expertise
- To position women as figures of authority in STEM, not just for girls and other women, but also for boys and men
We do this through our events, our content, and our conversations on social media.
What else has Ada Lovelace Day done?
Over the years, we’ve done lots of things to support women and girls in STEM, including publishing a podcast, two books, an education pack and free downloadable posters for schools. We ran a very successful mentoring program for three years, ran two online conferences through the pandemic, and published three free crochet patterns.
We’ve organised events for International Women’s Day, and our founder, Suw Charman-Anderson, has spoken at countless events and been interviewed on TV and radio.
We’re never short of ideas for how we can entertain and inspire girls and women to consider a STEM career!
What impact has Ada Lovelace Day had?
Since it launched in 2009, Ada Lovelace Day has achieved a huge amount on a tiny budget. We’ve been featured on the BBC including TV, radio and the website, as well as The Guardian, New Scientist, The New York Times and many more, with an estimated combined audience of more than 350 million viewers, listeners and readers. Our website has had 1.8 million visits and our YouTube channel over 2 million impressions.
But the most important impact has been on the women we’ve brought onto our stage and the girls and young women that our work has inspired. We have had speakers whose participation in Ada Lovelace Day Live has resulted in book deals, invitations to prestigious conferences, and higher public profiles.
We also know that some of the girls and young women in our audience have been encouraged to study STEM and have found new role models to inspire them.
How can I get involved?
Ada Lovelace Day is predominantly funded by corporate sponsorships so the most important thing you can do is download our prospectus (just fill in the form below) and discuss our opportunities with your colleagues. If you’re not sure whether sponsorship is right for you, take a look at our checklist!
If you’d like to engage your staff or community with Ada Lovelace Day, why not organise a livestream watch party for our flagship event on the evening of Tuesday 8 October 2024? We will be providing a generous discount for bulk ticket purchases, and it’s a great way to get involved!