Celebrating Janine Benyus for Ada Lovelace Day
Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron, is generally credited for writing the first computer program. Back in Ada’s day, a computer was called an analytical engine. Today, we’ll celebrate Ada Lovelace day by thinking about all those famous inventors of technology who were female. Did you think of any yet? Can you even name one? THAT’S why were celebrating Ada Lovelace Day.
The average percentage of women filing patents in recent years is a paltry 5.5%. Poor women. You know, we’d love to invent more stuff, but it hurts our brains! Ouch!
Don’t lose all hope because here comes Janine Benyus, an asskicker of a thinking woman if I ever saw one. Janine wrote Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature and founded the Biomimicry Institute. As a female scientist, Janine comes from just the place you’d expect: her approach is a holistic view of systems, a sustainable view for future innovation, and a search for solutions to problems by observing the natural world. According to the Biomimicry Institute:
Biomimicry is the practice of developing sustainable technologies inspired by ideas from Nature. Energy efficient buildings inspired by passive cooling in termite mounds and non-toxic fabric finishes inspired by water repellant lotus plants are examples of biomimicry changing our world today. While humans have a long way to go towards living sustainably on this planet, millions of species – each with nearly 4 billion years of field testing – contain technological ideas to help us succeed in our all-important quest to become a sustainable species on a biodiverse planet.
You can 
watch a TED Talk from Janine Benyus or read about her on Wikipedia.
And if you’d like to do your part in celebrating Ada Lovelace Day? Remind your daughter if you have one that math, science, and engineering labs everywhere need her desperately. Give her giant hugs for high grades on math and science tests, and remind her often that she should be proud to be brilliant.
UPDATE: My friend Julie Symons just received one of those rare patents issued to women in science for her work in machine learning and pattern recognition to help diagnose problems in computer applications. Right on Julie!!!
Yes, I did post this back in January, because yes, I did have the date wrong for Ada Lovelace Day, so here’s the re-post. :)
Happy Ada Lovelace Day!
Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron, is generally credited for writing the first computer program. Back in Ada’s day, a computer was called an analytical engine. Today, we’ll celebrate Ada Lovelace day by thinking about all those famous inventors of technology who were female. Did you think of any yet? Can you even name one? THAT’S why were celebrating Ada Lovelace Day.
The average percentage of women filing patents in recent years is a paltry 5.5%. Poor women. You know, we’d love to invent more stuff, but it hurts our brains! Ouch!
Don’t lose all hope because here comes Janine Benyus, an asskicker of a thinking woman if I ever saw one. Janine wrote Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature and founded the Biomimicry Institute. As a female scientist, Janine comes from just the place you’d expect: her approach is a holistic view of systems, a sustainable view for future innovation, and a search for solutions to problems by observing the natural world. According to the Biomimicry Institute:
Biomimicry is the practice of developing sustainable technologies inspired by ideas from Nature. Energy efficient buildings inspired by passive cooling in termite mounds and non-toxic fabric finishes inspired by water repellant lotus plants are examples of biomimicry changing our world today. While humans have a long way to go towards living sustainably on this planet, millions of species – each with nearly 4 billion years of field testing – contain technological ideas to help us succeed in our all-important quest to become a sustainable species on a biodiverse planet.
You can watch a TED Talk from Janine Benyus or read about her on Wikipedia. And if you’d like to do your part in celebrating Ada Lovelace Day? Remind your daughters if yo have them that math, science, and engineering labs everywhere need them desperately. Give them giant hugs for high grades on math and science tests and remind them often that they should be proud to be brilliant.
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