There should be no discrimination in development of technology
The contributions of women and people of color in the history and development of technology.
Computer-based and digital technologies have evolved over a long time before with many people around the world. It is now so close to our lives so we don’t really recognize it well. It is used in our everyday life including work, education, and even in our free time. It is hard to say one by one, because the development of computer-based technology has really developed through the efforts of so many people whom we remember well. However, there are many people who are not well recognized despite their contributions to the development of computer-based technology. Most of their achievements or contributions have not been noted, either because of their origins or because they are women.
There are so many outstanding Black inventors and scientists who contributed to computer-based and digital technologies. “Dr Philip Emeagwali is a computer scientist who was born in the 1950s in Nigeria and moved to the US to study Mathematics and marine engineering.” (Black inventors and pioneers who have influenced the way we use the internet and technology today, 2020) He invented the program for the fastest computer on earth which can calculate more than 3.1 billion times per second. He was inspired by bees working together in nature which can be applied to internally communicating computer systems. This technology is widely used in search engines we use to search in google or yahoo. “Marian R. Croak is the inventor of Voice over Internet Protocol, which enables us to use our internet network for voice and multimedia communications.” (Black inventors and pioneers who have influenced the way we use the internet and technology today, 2020) This technology is now used in Zoom or Skype that we use often nowadays. She has many patents that she has invented and is a pioneer in this computer-based technology field.
There is an impressive film which is called, “Hidden Figures about African American women mathematicians and engineers working for NASA in the early 1960s” (Computer History Must Include People of Color, 2017) related to the above paragraph. This movie is the first attempt to introduce to people the technological contributions by persons of color. The main character, Katherine Johnson is the first black woman to assist on the team which is the Space Task Group in NASA. She overcame discrimination on to her through her talented skills in analytical geometry and mathematical abilities. Later, she was accepted as a co-author for calculating the trajectories for the Apollo 11 and Space Shuttle missions.
