Ada Lovelace Day 2010 t-shirt designs

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The wonderful Sydney Padua, she of The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace & Babbage, has sketched out three possible t-shirts designs for us! Before she goes the whole hog and works up the sketches into proper designs, we thought it would be good to get an idea of which one is most popular, so please take a look at the roughs below and vote! (Please note: These are not finished designs, just ideas so you can get the gist.)

(Oh, and if you haven’t already pledged to take part in this year’s Ada Lovelace Day already, please sign up now!)

Right, so, the contenders!

A. Ada on horseback

B. Ada and punchtape

C. Ada says, We can do it!

UPDATE: I’ve closed the poll now because we have a clear winner! Syd is going to tidy up the design, taking some of the comments into account and I’ll post it as soon as she’s done. Thank you all for voting!

In closing, Syd says:

The final design is bound to change somewhat and probably I’d aim for colour on all 3. The Horse and Ray Gun is a sort of 30s western poster; the second one is an Alphonse Mucha ripoff, like these; and We Can Do It is this one obviously.

Time to pledge for Ada Lovelace Day 2010!

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Thanks to TechnoPhobia, Stephanie Troeth, Stephanie Booth and the other Ada Lovelace Day volunteers, I’m happy to announce that the new Ada Lovelace Day Pledge is up and running! Please go and sign up, and join us on 24th March 2010 in celebrating your tech heroine. We are hoping to get 3072 people to sign the pledge this year, so let your friends know and help us hit our target!

We are still doing a little bit of polishing of the website, getting it all ready for the big day. If you have any suggestions or feedback, please feel free to leave them on our UserVoice forum. And don’t forget to keen an eye on Twitter for up-to-the-minute news!

New Ada Lovelace Day Facebook group

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I’ve just started a new Facebook group for Ada Lovelace Day. I won’t be creating a Facebook event this year, because we are in the process of creating a new website that will include the pledge and mapping functionality that we used Pledgebank/Facebook for last year. But I think it’ll be useful for all the people who joined last year’s Facebook event page to keep up to date with what’s going on so feel free to join up and tell your friends!

Byron and Babbage: A Calculating Story

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Film maker Rosemarie Reed is putting together a feature-length film on Ada Byron Lovelace, called Byron and Babbage: A Calculating Story, and needs your help (especially if you’re in the United States.)

The film will be based on Ada’s letters and is, as Rosemarie describes it, “a documentary with some dramatic readings”. One of Rosemarie’s previous films, Out from the shadows: the story of Irène Joliot-Curie and Frédéric Joliot-Curie, was recently shown at the International Science Film Festival in Paris and is in a similar vein.

PBS National will distribute the film, so it will reach 95% of American households with an expected first night viewership of at least 7,000,000 the first night. It will also probably get an international airing, and Rosemarie is also putting together a web site plus a site in Second Life.

Advisors include Betty Toole, who wrote Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers; Joan Baum, who wrote The Calculating Passion of Ada Byron; Drummond Bone, a Byron scholar from Liverpool University; Doron Swade, a Charles Babbage expert; plus an as yet unconfirmed representative from the US Department of Defense for the Ada Software project.

But Rosemarie needs letters of support from people who have been influenced in some way by Ada and who are willing to help publicise the film, be a part of the interactive website, perhaps show the film, or contribute in any other way.

Rosemarie says, “I need letters from people stating how important a film like Ada is and how they through their networks can help to publicize the film. It would be great if the women have organizations they work or belong to. If they are software developers or computer experts, this would be great. It would be best if they were Americans, as the NSF (National Science Foundation) is American.”

If you’re not American, letters would still be useful of course! The deadline is the end of October.

Please write to:

Rosemarie Reed
On the Road Productions International, Inc.
310 Greenwich Street, 21F
New York, NY 10013

Or email Rosemarie directly.

Ada Lovelace Day recognised by Telegraph

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It was really nice to see Ada Lovelace Day (in the form of me) recognised in the Telegraph’s list of The 50 Most Influential Britons in Technology yesterday. It’s good that the effort to bring more women in tech to the fore has been appreciated, and I feel quite chuffed to have been included on their list of influencers.

Unfortunately, there are only five women in the Telegraph’s lower 25. I can’t help thinking that’s slightly ironic, not to mention another indicator that we have long way to go before Ada Lovelace Day becomes unnecessary.

I’ve blogged about the list, and my inclusion on it, in a bit more detail over on Strange Attractor. Meantime, I’ve been considering what needs to happen next with Finding Ada. On which, more news soon!