I'd love it if you read my article for @wearequeeraf.com and @transhistoryweek.com, because it was inspired by my only learning about her life and work after she died.

Let's honour Ada Lovelace Day. Learn, imagine, then begin to build.

I think of how our progress towards equal rights is an inevitability – how human thought and imagination will always evolve towards us becoming more together, more closely connected.

And now I think of the fight for Trans+ human rights. Something else Lynn Conway worked, wrote, and campaigned for through her career as an out trans woman in STEM.

We don’t need to be scientists to imagine, then begin to build, unprecedented things that alter reality, despite any form of scepticism.

Invention undeniably creates advancement, but there’s an another, equally important engine behind it – thinking that imagines evolution others might see as impossible. That might even *be* impossible, in the moment.

Conway embodied this example a century later, echoing some of Ada’s sentiments in her own words:

“Part of my spirit is a childlike openness that has always allowed me to see things other people don't notice."

She “never stopped playing, creating, messing around, being in awe of everybody”.

Lovelace imagined, in the 19th century, the first dreamy ideas resembling modern computing and programming, long before this technology could possibly have been built.

She said “Imagination…is that which penetrates into the unseen worlds around us.”

I think Conway and Lovelace were of a similar spirit. And not just as women who influenced computing and STEM innovation.

They were audacious, imaginative, open to exploration and experimentation with bold, unusual ideas. Unafraid to be unconventional.

I'd love it if you read my article at QueerAF, because it was inspired by my only learning about her life and work after she died.

Let's honour Ada Lovelace Day. Learn, imagine, then begin to build.

I think of how our progress towards equal rights is an inevitability – how human thought and imagination will always evolve towards us becoming more together, more closely connected.

And now I think of the fight for Trans+ human rights. Something else Lynn Conway worked, wrote, and campaigned for through her career as an out trans woman in STEM.

We don’t need to be scientists to imagine, then begin to build, unprecedented things that alter reality, despite any form of scepticism.

Invention undeniably creates advancement, but there’s an another, equally important engine behind it – thinking that imagines evolution others might see as impossible. That might even *be* impossible, in the moment.

Conway embodied this example a century later, echoing some of Ada’s sentiments in her own words:

“Part of my spirit is a childlike openness that has always allowed me to see things other people don't notice."

She “never stopped playing, creating, messing around, being in awe of everybody”.

Lovelace imagined, in the 19th century, the first dreamy ideas resembling modern computing and programming, long before this technology could possibly have been built.

She said “Imagination…is that which penetrates into the unseen worlds around us.”

I think Conway and Lovelace were of a similar spirit. And not just as women who influenced computing and STEM innovation.

They were audacious, imaginative, open to exploration and experimentation with bold, unusual ideas. Unafraid to be unconventional.