Who are the people who are shaping the course of technology? What are the first names that come to mind? Are they mostly men? Are there women on that list? In 2013, a group of women and men in the city of Bilbao, Spain began to think - over coffee, pens and napkins - about questions like these. Thus was born the first sketch of an award that would give visibility to female talent in the world of technology. The idea came from an accumulation of needs: to find and tell who these women are, to put them in the limelight, to give them the prominence they deserve. A year later, at the University of Deusto, Spain, the Ada Byron Award for Women Technologists and Scientists was born. The name of the award was not arbitrary.
Ada Byron (1815 - 1852) was one of the most outstanding figures in the history of computing and her work was not initially recognised either. The rector of Deusto, José María Guibert, reviews her achievements in the following way: "The contributions she made on Charles Babbage's analytical machine meant that she was considered the first programmer in history and that she created the notion of the algorithm, a vital concept for the field of computing. Ada's work was not recognised until finally John von Neumann and Alan Turing - two mathematicians instrumental in the development of the modern electronic digital computer - created the language called Ada. In the 1980s, the US Department of Defense developed a programming language in her honour, also named Ada".
The first winner of the Ada Byron Prize was Montserrat Meya Llopart, a graduate and doctor in Linguistics who has been working since the 1970s on information technologies with the aim of integrating natural language into the processes of databases and word processors. Montserrat was the first, but several others followed, and this year the eighth winner will be announced.
Since its presentation in 2014, the award has gained a lot of prestige and relevance in Spain. That is why, in 2019, the University of Deusto decided to begin its internationalisation. First it was Mexico, then in 2020 it was Argentina's turn and in 2021 Colombia and Uruguay joined the project.
The Uruguay Chapter
It was summer in the south when the invitation came to the UCU's International Affairs Department. Lucía Caumont, its director, joined Sonia Cozzano, the dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Technologies, and the team of the Directorate of Institutional Communication.
As the weeks progressed, work began on the formation of the jury and the scientific committee, fundamental pillars of the award. Both teams are made up of academic, scientific, business and institutional leaders from both the public and private sectors. TheThe applications are first evaluated by the scientific committee, which decides who the ten finalists are, and the jury chooses the winner of the Ada Byron Award.
The first edition of the Ada Byron Award for Women Technologists and Scientists was presented on Wednesday 7 July. The event - broadcast on Youtube and available on the UCU channel - took place in one of the laboratories of the Faculty of Engineering and Technologies and was hosted by journalist and communicator María Noel Marrone. The launch included the words of José María Guibert, rector of the University of Deusto; Cristina Giménez Elorriaga, director of the Ada Byron International Award of the University of Deusto; Cecilia Rossel, vice-rector of Research and Innovation of the UCU; Rodrigo Astiazaran, general manager of Microsoft Uruguay; and the opinions of several students, professors and career directors of the Faculty of Engineering of the UCU. María Noel was joined on set by Lucía Caumont and Sonia Cozzano.
On the importance of the UCU incorporating awards that highlight the work and talent of women, Lucía reflected: "Awards that celebrate women's achievements are a kick-start to correct certain situations of inequality. (...) In this case, women working in science and technology do not receive as much attention as men, their efforts do not receive as much attention as those of male figures, so it seems important to us to be able to take this first step, which is to recognise Uruguayan women who are making very valuable contributions.
Sonia, for her part, began with an exercise: Can we quickly say who are the women working in technology in Uruguay, or do we more easily come up with names of men? And then she said: "We need to generate examples so that more young women and girls can project themselves and say: 'I can be an engineer'. It is difficult for that to be born if we only see examples of men in the media, in books and in all the ways in which engineering is portrayed. (...) What happens with women is quite a complex case: we enter universities more and we also graduate more. Almost 62% of university students are women, but when we look at how many people are in engineering or technology degrees, we see that only 23% are women. We need to add more talent.
The dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Technologies of the UCU and president of the jury of the Ada Byron Award invited all women who are part of the technology universe in Uruguay to apply and to do the exercise of filling out the application form without thinking that they do not meet all the requirements. The Ada Byron Award also allows others to nominate friends, colleagues or women in their families.
Applications are now open and there is time to complete the application form until 15 September.
All information is available on the website www.premioadabyron.ucu.edu.uy.
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