IEEE SCV-Silicon Valley History Committee and IEEE-SCV-WIE invite you to attend:

The Other Women of ENIAC: Rethinking IT Innovation

When: Monday, March  20th, 6:00 pm – 8:30pm

Where: KeyPoint Credit Union, 2805 Bowers Ave, Santa Clara, CA 95051

What makes a computing historian tick?  What motivates their research into arcane topics and to lead a group of information technology historians (SIGCIS)?  We’ll learn that and more in an enlightening conversation with Thomas Haigh which will precede his presentation on the very popular book ENIAC in Action, published in 2016 by MIT Press.

Haigh explains that the six women now celebrated as the “first computer programmers” were actually hired as computer operators and worked hands-on with the machine around the clock. Other women, who actually built ENIAC, the first general purpose electronic computer, have been forgotten entirely. So has most of the work that made the project so successful, from procuring the right kind of wire to saving ENIAC from flood water.

The conversation will be moderated by Alan J. Weissberger, past chair and founder of the IEEE SV Tech History Committee.

Thomas Haigh, PhD is Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Comenius Visiting Professor of the History of Computing at Siegen University. He has published on many aspects of the history of computing including the evolution of data base management systems, word processing, the software package, corporate computer departments, Internet software, computing in science fiction, the “software crisis” of the 1960s, IBM in Europe, and the Colossus code breaking machines.

For details  check out  www.SiliconValleyHistory.com .To book your ticket follow the link.

Venue hints: The venue is just off Central Expressway; Park in lot adjacent to building on Bowers Ave.