The role of women in the history of technology has been overlooked for too long. It’s time to share and teach, and women need to work together to make this history more visible, Kathy Kleiman, co-producer of The Computers told Inspirefest 2015.
In a segment that also included content ranging from Kerry Howard of Bletchley Park Research outlining the feats of Margaret Rock, Mavis Lever and Joan Clarke – cracking the German Enigma code – to the Jewels of Allah author Dr Ninah Ansary revealing the technological and scientific accomplishments made by Iranian women in spite of a repressive regime, Kleiman revealed how an important group of women had almost been overlooked by history.
Kathy Kleiman is the co-producer and co-writer of The Computers: The Remarkable Untold Story of the ENIAC Programmers. This is the story of six women missing from computing history – the women who programmed the ENIAC, the world’s first all-electronic, programmable computer (a secret US WWII project). She founded the ENIAC Programmers Project to record their oral histories, seek recognition for their accomplishments and produce a documentary of their dramatic story.