IT Innovations by Women: Trailblazers That Have Shaped Technology

When we talk about the earliest days of computing or modern breakthroughs in AI, we often overlook the women who shaped these technologies. As Virginia Woolf says, “For most of history, Anonymous was a woman”—and in tech, that’s often been the case.

From programming languages to software engineering, women have helped build the foundation of IT. As we celebrate Women’s History Month, it’s important to recognize their contributions and legacies.

Here are some of the famous women who shaped our technology today:

1. The ENIAC Women: The First Modern Computer Programmers

When the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was launched in 1946, many praised J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly, the engineers who built it. But behind its success were six women who developed its programming: Kathleen McNulty, Frances Elizabeth Snyder, Frances Bilas, Marlyn Wescoff, Betty Jean Jennings, and Ruth Lichterman.

Originally hired as “human computers” (a clerical role) for the U.S. Army, they were later assigned to program the ENIAC in 1942 to calculate ballistic trajectories during World War II.

Yet, they faced major challenges:

• They had to figure out everything without any given manuals 
• They were kept in a separate room and had to learn programming without even seeing the machine at first.

Despite this, these women developed programming methods using logical diagrams and physical switches, laying the foundation for modern software development.

For decades, no one knew about their contributions. It wasn’t until recent years that their pioneering role in computing was rediscovered (by female journalist Kathy Kleiman), proving these first programmers were innovators who changed our technology forever.

2. Elizebeth Smith Friedman: The Pioneer of Modern Cybersecurity

Elizebeth Smith Friedman (1892–1980) was a pioneering American cryptanalyst whose work in codebreaking, cryptography, and national security contributed to modern cybersecurity.

She was recruited to decode enemy messages during WWI using cryptanalysis. In the 1920s and 1930s, she broke secret codes for the U.S. Coast Guard and cracked Nazi spy codes during WWII. Yet most of her work remained unrecognized.

Friedman’s techniques in pattern recognition, linguistic analysis, and cipher decryption helped shape modern cybersecurity and digital encryption today.

3. Grace Hopper: The Mother of Computing

Grace Hopper (1906–1992) was a computer scientist, U.S. Navy rear admiral, and programming pioneer. She is best known for developing the first compiler, a tool that translates human-readable language into machine code, making programming faster and easier.

In the 1940s and early 1950s, computers were difficult to program because they could only execute low-level instructions. She designed the A-0 System, the first-ever compiler where programmers could input commands in a more structured way. 

She also led the creation of COBOL, which paved the way for modern programming languages like Python, Java, and C.

Hopper is also known for popularizing the term “debugging” after removing an actual moth from a malfunctioning computer.

Without her contributions, software development would not be what it is today.

4. Adele Goldberg: The Woman Behind Graphical User Interface

Did you know? A woman’s work inspired the design of Apple’s first computer and future gadgets.

Adele Goldberg is an American computer scientist and software pioneer best known for her contributions to object-oriented programming and graphical user interfaces (GUIs). 

At Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) in the 1970s, she co-developed Smalltalk, an object-oriented programming language that introduced:

• Windows and icons
• Menus and point-and-click interactions
• Drag-and-drop functionality

When Steve Jobs visited the research center in 1979, he was inspired by the graphical user interface Goldberg had helped develop. Yet, she was reluctant to share her innovations with Apple, knowing they would be used without proper credit. 

Eventually, Goldberg’s GUI inspired another noteworthy female pioneer, Susan Kare, to develop Apple’s signature graphics.

5. Radia Perlman: The Mother of the Internet

Dr. Radia Perlman is an American computer scientist and network engineer. She’s best known for her invention of the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), an algorithm that allows network switches to find the most efficient path for data without failures or infinite loops.

Perlman also worked on improving network security and scalability, helping design robust routing protocols that protect against cyber attacks. She also contributed to TRILL (Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links), a more modern protocol that improved network efficiency beyond STP.

Today, she is recognized as a pioneer in IT infrastructure and has received numerous awards, including induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame (2016).

6. Annie Easley: A Pioneer in Rocket Science

Annie Easley was an African-American computer scientist, mathematician, and rocket scientist who worked at NASA and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). 

Without any computer science degree, Easley became one of the few Black women in her field to work as a “human computer” at NASA in 1955.

As NASA moved to digital computing, Easley taught herself to code, mastering FORTRAN and assembly language. She soon became a key programmer, writing and maintaining software for rocket propulsion systems. 

Her software helped develop the Centaur rocket, an innovative breakthrough in space exploration. She also worked on energy conversion systems that are used in modern electric vehicles.

As one of the few Black women in NASA’s computing division, Easley faced racial and gender discrimination but continued to mentor others and advocate for diversity in STEM.

7. Fei-Fei Li: The Woman Who Taught AI to See

Dr. Fei-Fei Li is a Chinese-American computer scientist known for her work in artificial intelligence (AI) and computer vision. She is a Stanford University professor and the co-director of the Stanford Human-Centered AI Institute. 

In the early 2000s, AI struggled to recognize images. Fei-Fei Li realized that for AI to “see” like humans, it needed better data, not just better algorithms. In 2009, she launched ImageNet, a massive project labeling 14 million images that created the foundation for modern computer vision.

Her breakthrough came in 2012 when deep learning models trained on ImageNet outperformed all previous AI systems, paving the way for self-driving cars, facial recognition, and medical imaging. 

Later, as Chief Scientist at Google Cloud, she pushed for AI accessibility across industries while advocating for ethical, human-centered AI.

Fei-Fei also saw a lack of diversity in AI and co-founded AI4ALL in 2017 to bring women and minorities into tech. Today, her innovations power smartphones, security systems, and life-saving medical AI.

8. Karen Spärck Jones: The Developer of Search Engines

Karen Spärck Jones was a British computer scientist whose work shaped modern search engines and natural language processing (NLP). Her innovations in information retrieval helped develop the technology behind Google search, AI chatbots, and voice assistants.

She introduced IDF, a method that helps search engines rank relevant content by identifying important words in documents. This became a core part of TF-IDF, a standard for modern web searches and AI text processing.

Karen also worked on making computers understand human language, leading to breakthroughs in speech recognition, machine translation, and AI-driven search engines.

9. Lixia Zhang: Innovator in IT Networking 

Dr. Lixia Zhang is a Chinese-American computer scientist and networking expert known for her contributions to internet protocols, network architecture, and cybersecurity. 

She is a Professor of Computer Science at UCLA and one of the founding members of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Her work has helped shape modern networking technologies, including how the internet manages data flow and security.

Lixia co-designed the Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP), a system that prevents lag or interruptions during video calls, live streaming, and real-time apps. She later introduced the concept of “middleboxes”, devices that firewalls, load balancers, and NAT systems now rely on to protect and manage internet traffic. 

Now, she’s helping to redesign the internet itself with Named Data Networking (NDN)—a new way to structure the web so it retrieves information based on content, not just server location, making the internet faster and scalable for AI, IoT, and 5G networks.

10. Mary Allen Wilkes: The Pioneer of Personal Computing 

Mary Allen Wilkes is an American computer programmer and hardware pioneer famous for her work on the LINC (Laboratory Instrument Computer), one of the first personal computers. 

Wilkes was a lead programmer for the LINC, an early interactive computer designed for research labs. While working on LINC, Wilkes set up a computer in her own home, making her one of the first people in history to have and operate a personal computer outside of a lab setting.

Her work helped shift computing away from batch processing (where users had to submit jobs and wait for results) to real-time computing, which is now standard in personal computers.

Celebrating Women’s Innovations in IT

Women have made countless contributions that shaped modern technology. From developing programming languages to network architecture and AI models, these inventions have become crucial for modern innovation in IT. 

Yet, many of their legacies remain untold.

We need to honor them by working together to create a more inclusive industry where diverse perspectives drive innovation in tech.