Let’s celebrate Women in Technology

For Women’s History Month, we’d like to start with a huge Happy Birthday to the one and only Frances Elizabeth “Betty” Holberton, our namesake here at Holberton School and one of the first innovators in computer programming. As one of the six programmers who worked on ENIAC, the one of the first programmable, general purpose computers, she was literally at the forefront of computer programming, and continued to innovate throughout her entire professional career.

And being among the first, there were no teachers and she didn’t learn her trade by sitting in a classroom listening to lectures, but by diving in. She learning by observing and directly working with these early computer computational machines, and her innovations built the very framework of modern computing. This hands-on approach to learning by doing is what we try to embody today as we help train the next generation of tech leaders and innovators.

Betty Holberton entered software programming at the very beginning, and her inspiration as a tech pioneer continues today. In celebration of Women’s History Month and Betty Holberton’s birthday, we wanted to highlight why including more women in technology is a great thing for both the industry and society as a whole. So, we reached out to thought leaders, industry mentors, and the very people who have invested in Holberton School to ask them why they think including more women in tech is an important goal for us, and the broader tech industry as a whole, to pursue. And so without further ado, let’s celebrate Women in Tech and Women’s History Month with all of the people who believe in our vision of inclusion and diversity:

Neha Jain, Software Engineering Manager and winner of Top 10 Women in Cloud 2017

Kelvin Beachum, Professional player for the New York Jets and philanthropist

Shauntel Garvey, General Partner at Reach Capital:

Thank you Betty Holberton for the innovations your brought to tech, thank you to all the women leaders of today for their hard work and innovation, and good luck to the female innovators of tomorrow: We’re rooting for you and we know you’ll achieve greatness.