Breaking the 20%
Before computers were machines, they were women! For a span of two centuries the term "computer" was effectively interchangeable with a woman tasked with the role of a human calculator, adept at solving intricate mathematical problems. Then World War II started and men decided to build computers. Despite their zeal to build the machines, they had no interest in programming them, so they left the job to the women. Women, under the leadership of figures like Grace Hopper, played a pivotal role in shaping the burgeoning industry. And then, in 1984, everything changed. Women exited and the men became the programmers, the software engineers, and the "rock stars" of the digital epoch. Today merely 20% of IT degrees are being awarded to women. In this podcast with the help of my wonderful guests, we delve into the chronicles of these forgotten women, the trailblazers who guided us into the digital era.
This podcast explores the amazing lives of women who pioneered the early years, and why the women left. We also talk about the women who are proving today that we can still make it, we can still lead the industry. And finally, we try to find the magic formula to break the 20% and bring back the women.
But that’s not all! Our Breakroom segment, co-hosted with Michalis, offers a fresh, irreverent take on the latest news from the tech and startup worlds. Instead of glorifying the industry, we gossip, roast tech billionaires, and critique our favorite (and not-so-favorite) tech services and products. It’s a fun, unfiltered, and informal dive into the quirks and controversies of the tech world.
Whether you’re here for the history, the inspiration, or the gossip, Breaking the 20% has something for everyone who cares about the past, present, and future of women in tech.
Breaking the 20%
Lynn Conway: A Life in Stealth, A Legacy in Silicon
In this episode, we honor Pride Month by sharing the extraordinary story of Lynn Conway.
In the 1960s, while working at IBM, Lynn had a flash of insight that solved a critical problem: how to enable a supercomputer to execute multiple instructions simultaneously, even when dependent on prior instructions. Her invention, known as dynamic instruction scheduling (DIS), would later become a foundation of modern computing. Yet in 1968, IBM fired her for being transgender. Lynn was forced to start over, eventually re-emerging years later as the co-author of a textbook that revolutionized microchip design and helped spark the personal computing era. Listen in to learn how Lynn Conway built the future while hiding from her past and how she ultimately reclaimed her rightful place in history.
To read the full story of Lynn in Lynn's own words, you can visit: https://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/RetrospectiveT.html
more episodes at https://breaking20.eu/
