Ada, Countess of Lovelace, helped to popularize the usage of her name starting in the 19th century. She was actually the only legitimate daughter of Victorian romantic poet Lord Byron and born Augusta Ada Byron on December 10, 1815 (her parents had separated when she was young and her father died before she was ten so they were never close). Ada Byron took an early interest in the study of mathematics and demonstrated a remarkable talent for the discipline. She worked with Charles Babbage on his “analytical machine†(regarded as a crude version of an early computer). Part of her work includes notations on an algorithm she wrote intended for the machine to process, and so she is often credited as the world’s first computer geek (i.e., programmer). Ada Lovelace Day is an annual event intended to “raise the profile of women in science, technology, engineering and math”.
