Ada Lovelace Day itself is over for this year, although there are still a few events yet to happen such as the XX Game Jam; the Wikipedia Edit-a-thon organised by Wikimedia UK and the Royal Society; the Girl Geek Dinner Milano; and the ADA Lab Lunch in Vicenza (details on the Worldwide Events page).

Ada Lovelace Day Live! feat. the WES Karen Burt Memorial Award was, as you might expect, absolutely fantastic and I would like to thank everyone who made it such an amazing evening.

Helen Arney, photo by Andrew Steele.

I must particularly thank our speakers, Dr Suzie Sheehy, Gia Milinovich, Dr Helen Scales, Helen Keen, Dr Alice Bell, Sarah Angliss, Sydney Padua and Tracy King, all of whom gave up their time for free, and put so much energy and thought into a series of talks, performances and demonstrations that blew our collective minds. It was an amazing evening of full of science, passion, and the stories of some genuinely awe-inspiring women whose dedication to exploration and discovery was inspirational.

Very special thanks to Helen Arney, who not only hosted the event but also produced it, finding speakers and ensuring that the evening gelled as a performance. I’m also very grateful to her fantastic team of volunteers, Kirsty Chestnutt, Helen Clarkson, Marianne Baker and Julie Bristow, with whom she ran a show that would have been as at home in the Bloomsbury Theatre as it was at the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET).

None of this would have been possible without Dawn Bonfield and the Women’s Society of Engineers (WES). It was only through collaborating with WES and the IET that we were able to enjoy such a great venue. So thanks to the staff of the IET who made the evening go so smoothly and who thought of many small details that we had missed, and also to the WES volunteers who helped out on the night: Grazyna Whapshott, Esther Ogundipe, Collete Owhonda and Susan Abraham.

I must also thank Milada Williams, WES president, as well as Karen Burt’s family for their support of the evening, and congratulate Kate Cooksey, winner of the WES Karen Burt Memorial Award.

Further thanks to Miles Taylor, an essential member of the Ada Lovelace Day/Finding Ada team who has provided much needed administrative and research support.

I’m also very grateful to our volunteers on the night, Neil Ford, Aidan Goatley, Joel Mitchell, Louise Ferguson, Maggie Berry and Owen Blacker, as well as BCSWomen, WPEngine and Evectors, and all the bloggers, podcasters, Tweeters and journalists who have helped us spread the word not just about the event but about the day itself. And, as ever, many thanks to all the people around the world who organised their own events, especially the Association for UK Interactive Entertainment  and the London Games Festival for organising the XX Games Jam.

Finally, heartfelt thanks to my husband, Kevin Anderson, for his continued help and support.

– Suw Charman-Anderson, Founder, Ada Lovelace Day

If you’re short of inspiration for this year’s Ada Lovelace Day, take a look at this infographic by Gaverne Bennett. Click the thumbnail to download a bigger PDF version.

Jennifer Summerfield as Ada Lovelace, photo Kyle Cassidy

The Allens Lane Theater in Philadelphia, PA, is putting on Romulus Linney’s play, Childe Byron, about Ada Lovelace and her relationship to the father she never knew, Lord Byron.

As her own end draws near, Ada Byron Lovelace is seized with a desire to know more about her profligate father.  Stimulated by the drugs she takes for her illness, Ada summons Lord Byron to life and, in sharp, sarcastic exchanges, probes into the truth behind the myth. The life and art of Byron unfold and in the end the private man, the public figure and the protean poet are reconciled, while Ada, a genius in her own right, finds peace with herself and the father she never knew.

In this video, actress Jennifer Summerfield discusses the challenges of bringing Ada to the stage.

Jennifer, who is also known as Trillian Stars, told the Geekadelphia blog:

I love having the opportunity to play a woman whose life is so well documented; usually an actor’s homework involves coming up with your own character history, limited only by imagination. With Ada, however, I’ve had an amazing journey through the 19th Century, reading her letters and the letters of her father, Lord Byron, as well as Byron’s poetry. She was a fantastically complex person and is extremely difficult to portray with complete justice, because there were so many contradictions in her personality… both a woman of her time and ahead of it, poetic but scientific, cold yet emotional… and she often contradicted herself from one letter to another, making it difficult to pin her down and determine motivations.

A challenge like Ada is enough to draw me as an actor; there’s a need to get inside her head and look around, find the solution to this wonderful, complicated woman, just as Ada tries to discover the solution to her father, Lord Byron, in the play.

If you’re in the Philadelpha area, get your tickets and go along to one of the last two performances.

Childe Byron
Written by Romulus Linney
Directed by Ellen Wilson Dilks
Remaining dates: Oct. 12, 13
Run Time: 1hr 50min with intermission

If there’s one thing that most events simply don’t have enough of, it’s robots. Robots, and saws. Not so Ada Lovelace Day Live!, which will feature the robot-wrangling saw-flexing talents of Sarah Angliss, composer and tech historian.

Sarah describes her performances as “tapping into her obsessions with scientific oddities, obsolete machines, faded variety acts and the darkest European folk tales to create highly original, unsettling and sometimes strangely comic work.”

With a live show that can only be described as a technical marvel, Sarah’s geeky, science-focused music features theremin, keyboard and musical saw.

Hugo, one of Sarah’s robot friends

Sarah’s mechanical sidekicks include Hugo, a rather spooky roboticised, disembodied 1930s vent doll head, The Ealing Feeder, a robotic bell playing machine, and Clara 2.0, which Sarah describes as ‘the polite robot thereminist’.

Sarah, performing with Spacedog

Sarah’s band, Spacedog, is probably the only live band to give equal billing to both humans and robots and has been featured on Radio 4 and in 2011 won the Best Music Event of Brighton Festival and Fringe. She’s had received funding from NESTA Dreamtime and public engagement grants from the Wellcome Trust. In 2007, her digital performance Repeat Repeat, in collaboration with performer Caroline Radcliffe, won a Quake Dance Festival Award.

We can promise you, of all the performances you’ve seen in 2012, nothing will be quite like Sarah Angliss and her robot pals!

Tickets for ALD Live! are £10 for the general public, £5 for students. Book now!