Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, 1815–1852
née Augusta Ada Byron.
Mathematician, mother, friend of Dickens, Ada envisaged both computer programming and artificial intelligence.
We have a good biography, 510.92 The bride of science : romance, reason, and Byron's daughter, written by Benjamin Woolley who was assisted by descendents of most of the main characters in Ada's story.
Add to your "to read" list: Charles Dickens in Cyberspace: The Afterlife of the Nineteenth Century in Postmodern Culture. We don't have it now, but have a copy on order.
Here are some web sites appropriate for the day:
Lovelace— the Origin (the comic). *****
BrainPOP video.
BBC radio program (or programme) 45 min.
Note 1: Ada was the inspiration for the character Thomasina in Tom Stoppard's play Arcadia (1993).
Note 2: Ada Lovelace Day exists to celebrate women in technology. Do you know the stories of Grace Hopper, Joyce Reynolds, Mary Lou Jepson, Betty Holberton, Amy Pearl and the many other brilliant women who invented much of modern computing? Today a number of web sites will honor them. (example)
Note 3: Ada also lost a lot of money on horse races (in a syndicate with Florence Nightingale's father), had to cope with difficult clothes, and was the mother of Lady Anne Blunt, a 19th century adventurer who wrote Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates and A Pilgrimage to Nejd.
A Cristóbal Vila video that Ada, the mathematician, would have loved.
(public domain picture of Ada from Wikimedia Commons)