If you’re looking forward to next week’s Ada Lovelace Day 2024 events, here’s an appetiser for you.
The Edinburgh Women in STEM Trail created for the University’s Ada Lovelace Day 2023 event has a new home on Curious Edinburgh, which offers mobile walking tours on Edinburgh’s scientific and community heritage.
Visit the Curious Edinburgh webpage or get the app to see the tour in its new home.
What do a riot-causing medical student, a famous entomologist, a best-selling author-astronomer, an adventurous botanist and a pioneer of genetic engineering have in common? They are all women you can find out about in this tour, which features locations in Edinburgh connected to amazing women in STEM. Celebrate equality, diversity and inclusion in STEM by taking a look at Edinburgh-connected women who have made an impact in a wide range of STEM fields.
The BBC Countryfile programme recently visited Culbone Woods on the north coast of Exmoor. Culbone Wood is part of the estate of Ashley Combe House, which Ada moved to after she married William King, who later becomes Lord Lovelace.
BoB video clip (7m 7s)
Box of Broadcasts (BoB) is an off-air recording and broadcast media archive service. BoB is available to all members of the University of Edinburgh.
Lucy Shipley, a Historic Environment Record Officer at Exmoor National Park tells us that all this woodland used to be owned by Ada Lovelace, and they are now trying to recreate the vision Ada had for this woodland.
This includes reinstating and restoring five one-mile long footpaths, stone walls and viewpoints.
Woodland officer Graeme McVittie details conservation work of the rare whitebeam tree and their attempts to propagate (Sorbus Margaretae) one particular mature specimen located at a focal point overlooking the Bristol Channel.
We have an afternoon of talks, activities and training planned for Ada Lovelace Day. This will take place on the first floor of the Main Library (Central Area) from 11:00-17:00 in Room 1.07.
You can confirm your attendance via Event Booking now (open to all University students and staff):
Join us for tea, coffee and cake in Room 1.07 Main Library
11:15am-1pm
We have a series of lightning talks including:
Dr Melissa Highton, Assistant Principal University of Edinburgh on why we celebrate Ada Lovelace Day and inspirational women in STEM
Professor Frauke Zeller, Professor of HCI & Creative Informatics in the School of Computing and Engineering & the Built Environment at Napier University to talk about her research in big data analyses, audience analytics, AI ethics and Human-Computer and Robot Interaction. She will tell us the story of the world’s first hitchhiking robot with a talk titled “Can a robot be your friend? The creativity in robot research”
Professor Ruth King, Thomas Bayes Professor of Statistics Mathematics, with an intriguing talk titled “A life in Statistics motivated by Agatha Christie – the “Queen of Crime””
Dr Catherine Bromley, Head of Service (Digital Strategy & Product Development) for Public Health Scotland. Catherine will talk about the public good of statistics
Bhargavi Ganesh – an Informatics PhD student who works in the area of AI will be giving a talk titled “Tracing Tree Rings: Embracing Unconventional Paths in STEM”
1pm-2pm settle down for some lunch, colouring in, badge and sticker making, and green-screen photos with Ada Lovelace
2pm-3pm Join our Wikimedia editathon (Full Wikipedia training – learn how to edit the free encyclopedia!)
Short break
3pm-5pm Researching & writing new pages (50-100 words+) about Women in STEM to publish and share. Nominate your STEM heroines here
Other Activities Happening
Edinburgh Women in STEM Trail
Throughout the week, use the Edinburgh Women in STEM Trail (self-guided) to visit places in Edinburgh connected with women in STEM. How many of these locations can you find? If you like, take a photo of your visit (selfie or not, as you prefer), post in Twitter/X, tag @UoE_LTW and add the hashtag #UoEAdaDay2023. We can’t wait to see your photos!
uCreate Studio
If you’ve not heard about uCreate Studio, the University’s biggest community makerspace, they are running some induction sessions in the library during Ada Lovelace day:
Celebrate Ada Lovelace Day with two weeks of data and programming courses offered by the Digital Skills Team from the 9th to 20th of October. Open to all students and completely free to attend!
Read more details and register here – https://edin.ac/44UITUJ. Also stay tuned for the Digital Skills Team’s upcoming themed fortnights!
LTW Graphic Designer Nicky Greenhorn has kindly created new STEM badge designs for Ada Lovelace Day 2022.
These are designed for 25mm small badges and stickers. We’ve applied a Creative Commons attribution licence to make them an OER (Open Educational Resource).
Join us today in the Main Library, for an afternoon of celebrating #WomenInSTEM in honour of #AdaLovelaceDay. We have talks, crafting, badge making, #Wikipedia editing and biscuits!
Celebrating Film and Television Depictions of Women in STEM
In honour of Ada Lovelace Day, an international holiday celebrating the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM), we’re highlighting our favourite depictions of women in STEM in film and TV to spur you to develop your digital skills. Read on for our top picks and what courses on our Digital Skills Programme you can take if you’re feeling inspired.
Watch: Hidden Figures (2016)
Based on the book of the same name, Hidden Figures recounts the true story of Black female mathematicians Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe), who worked at NASA during the 1960s Space Race. While all three women prove themselves formidable in a white/male-dominated workplace, an especially inspiring storyline shows Dorothy teaching herself and her co-workers programming after NASA installs an IBM 7090 electronic computer that threatens to replace “human computers,” a move that sees her promoted to supervise the Programming Department.
Take: Introduction to Data Science (5 October, 26 October, 23 November 2022) – If you loved Hidden Figures, you’ll definitely want to check out our Introduction to Data Science webinar, which familiarises beginners with concepts such as big data, statistics and analysis, and coding languages and tools.
Watch: Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist (2020-2021)
Episode 2.06 “Zoey’s Extraordinary Reckoning”
The musical comedy-drama Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist charts the story of Zoey Clarke (Jane Levy), a software developer at the fictional San Francisco-based tech company SPRQ Point. After an earthquake occurs during Zoey’s MRI, she develops the ability to hear people’s inner thoughts in the form of pop songs. Despite being cancelled after two seasons, the show offers excellent insight into systemic bias in the tech world through its musical numbers, especially in season 2, episode 6, which shines a light on the need for companies to address the sector’s historic lack of racial diversity.
Take: Contextualising digital skills: Equality, diversity and inclusion in tech (19 October) – this brand new course introduces learners to some of the many equality, diversity and inclusion-related issues within the tech world and how you can do your part in dismantling systemic bias. We can’t teach you how to sing like they do in Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, but you’ll at least leave with a deeper understanding of why EDI concerns are so central to the evolving tech landscape.
Watch: The Imitation Game (2014) and Enigma (2001)
Both these films feature British codebreakers working to decrypt German messages at Bletchley Park during World War II. While The Imitation Game primarily focuses on Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch), it also highlights cryptanalyst Joan Clarke’s (Keira Knightley) integral role in the breaking of the Enigma machine. Enigma, on the other hand, shines more of a spotlight on the Wrens (Women’s Royal Naval Service) working at Bletchley Park, albeit through a heavily fictionalised mystery plot with a terrific Kate Winslet at its centre. Both films are, however, well worth a watch, especially if you’re interested in cryptography.
If you’re into cryptography, chances are you’ll enjoy these Information Security sessions tracking the ever evolving cyber security landscape. Sadly, we don’t have any codebreaking workshops on offer at the moment, but we can offer some helpful guidance on making sure your data isn’t as decipherable as the Enigma machine.
Watch: Ghostbusters (2016)
Since October celebrates not only Ada Lovelace Day but also Halloween, we’d be remiss to leave out the 2016 gender-swapped remake of Ghostbusters. This updated version of the story centres on female scientists investigating paranormal phenomena in New York City. While the science of building proton packs is unfortunately beyond the scope of our Digital Skills Programme, we do have a couple of courses that would help with the data visualisation aspect of ghost-hunting.
Take: Microsoft Power BI: An Introduction to Power BI and data ethics (20 October) – this new offering introduces users to Power BI, a business intelligence tool that provides an interactive platform for “non-technical” users to understand data. Maybe if the women of Ghostbusters had used Power BI to create eye-catching and interactive dashboards, they wouldn’t have had such a hard time convincing people that ghosts were real.
Watch: The X-Files (1993-2018)
Episode 3.06 “2Shy”
You didn’t think we’d end this list without referencing Gillian Anderson’s iconic Agent Dana Scully, did you? Taking TV by storm in the early 1990s, Agent Scully made her mark on girls and women across the globe over the course of nine original seasons (before returning in 2016 for two more) as people tuned in to watch the medical doctor turned paranormal investigator go head to head with monsters, aliens and cigarette smoking men at a time when it was incredibly rare to see a woman in STEM as a leading role on a network television series.
The “Scully Effect,” wherein girls and women were inspired to pursue STEM subjects after seeing Anderson’s character onscreen, was examined in a study by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, but it’s safe to say she continues to be a role model to countless individuals.
Take: Digital safety: Lessons from Netflix (8 November). You could really watch any episode of The X-Files to see why Scully is awesome but season 3 episode 6 “2Shy” not only shows her as a fighter but also illuminates some dangers of online dating that are still relevant today. As we integrate more digital technologies into our daily lives, just as Scully and Mulder were starting to do in the 90s, it’s more important than ever to take pains to keep ourselves safe, too. Our Digital safety: Lessons from Netflix course uses examples from popular media to illustrate the importance of staying safe while connecting with others in digital spaces.
Blog post by Vicki Madden (Digital Safety Support Officer)
Digital Skills and Training / Learning, Teaching and Web Services / Information Services Group
Digital Skills competition for Ada Lovelace Day – win a goody bag!
To celebrate Ada Lovelace Day and promote our new course programme, the Digital Skills Team are running a competition to win a bag of branded goodies, including a pen, ruler, fan, water bottle and notebook.
To enter the competition, simply spell out ADA LOVELACE by finding 11 Digital Skills courses that start with each letter. Staff can search the People & Money Learning App for Digital Skills courses, and students can search Event Booking. Each letter should be represented by a different course (no duplicates!). If we don’t have a course starting with one of the letters, you can use a course with a word in the title starting with that letter.
Here is an example of what we are looking for, using ‘Digital Skills’ instead of ‘Ada Lovelace’.
D – Developing your digital skills
I – Introduction to Audacity
G – Getting started with Microsoft Teams
I – Information Security: Phish and tips
T – Teaching with Wikipedia: a practical ‘how to’ workshop
A – Adobe Creative Cloud Express: Introduction
L – Library Bitesize: Check your source
S – Study resources for literature reviews
K – Digital Research Pecha Kucha
I – Introduction to data science
L – Information Security: The evolving threat landscape
L – Introduction to LinkedIn Learning
S – Subtitling for media creators
To enter the competition, email your answer to the Digital Skills Team at is.skills@ed.ac.uk by the end of Friday 14th October 2022 – the first 5 correct answers picked at random will each get a goody bag. We will notify winners by email before 28th October. Please note that winners will need to collect their prize from Argyle House.
Celebrate the achievements of women in STEM with this collection of courses and videos, inspired by Ada Lovelace, presented by women in STEM industries.
We have an afternoon of talks, activities and training planned for Ada Lovelace Day. This will take place on the first floor of the Main Library (Central Area) from 11:00-17:00 in Room 1.07.
You can confirm your attendance via Event Booking now (open to all UoE students and staff):
Karen Howie on ‘ Approaching Imposter Syndrome : False Starts and Reflections from a Woman in Tech.’
Prof. Emma Hart on how she takes inspiration from the natural world to build computer algorithms and evolving robots
Ben McConville, President of the University’s Computer Science Society, CompSoc, on Scotland’s largest tech society – run by students of the University of Edinburgh. CompSoc is a diverse community of computer scientists, programmers, and people who are passionate about all things Tech.
CompSoc Edinburgh in Scotland’s largest tech society – run by students of the University of Edinburgh. Our Society is a diverse community of computer scientists, programmers, and people who are passionate about all things Tech.
As a society, we host monthly Student Tech Meetups, regular workshops, and many social events with a touch of Computer Science culture. CompSoc also organises one of the largest hackathons in the country, Hack the Burgh – with over 150 attendees coming from around the world.
CompSoc is always happy to have people from any discipline and we would love to have you as a part of our community.
This year #ALD2021 will have fun & impactful Wikipedia editing activities and evening networking events. After a year like no other, it is even more important that we come together online and in-person (if we can) to celebrate and support one another this year.
We just need a name suggestion of someone suitably notable/eminent in their field and some sources of information (reliable published secondary sources ideally independent of the person themselves) to get a bio written of 50-100 words or more and help others all around the world read, discover and be inspired by their work.
2. Evening networking event – Women in Chemistry (5.30-6.45pm (Zoom and in-person event)
The Edinburgh Hoppers have decided to organise a hackathon in honour of Ada Lovelace. It’ll be taking place from 15th – 17th October, virtually. Here is the link to the Adahack website for more information : https://adahack.tech/.
4. Colour your own Ada and Mary – Ada Lovelace OERS
These Open Education Resources are free to use and colour in from our Interactive Content Blog, Flickr and Wikimedia Commons:
More than 4 million learners have taken one of our free short online courses, and more than half of the learners on FutureLearn and Coursera are women! We’ve a huge choice of STEM short online courses you can take – and they’re totally free. Here are just a few:
Jess is only one person and we need LOTS more editors to help combat gender inequality. Only ~10% of Wikipedia editors are female which skews the content available in our search results so we need more female editors but we need more men to step up too to write about these gaps in our shared knowledge. Some suggested names for inspiring women in STEM missing from our search results are on this Women in Red list.
There will also be Wikipedia editing events happening in England, Wales, and New Zealand on the same day.
7. Resources to bridge the digital gender divide
In celebration of Ada Lovelace Day 2021, the Digital Skills and Training team have created a resource list dedicated to bridging the digital gender divide. As Ada Lovelace Day celebrates the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM), we thought it was time to shine a light on the barriers that women and girls the world over face when it comes to digital participation – particularly, the abuse and harassment that women face online. The following resources offer more information on the digital gender divide and the steps needed to close it. Content warning: Sexism, violence.
LTW Graphic Designer Nicky Greenhorn has kindly created new STEM badge designs for Ada Lovelace Day 2022.
On Tuesday 11th October 2022, the University’s Information Services team are celebrating Ada Lovelace Day 2022 which is an 
