The National Security Agency (NSA) has digitized and published a 1982 lecture by Rear Admiral (then Captain) Grace Hopper entitled, "Future Possibilities: Data, Hardware, Software, and People. The lecture was recorded on a now obsolete medium for which the NSA did not have playback capabilities any more. It was necessary to reach out to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to be able to transfer the recording to a current medium so that the NSA could review the material and approve it for public release.
The lecture, "Future Possibilities: Data, Hardware, Software, and People," features Capt. Hopper discussing some of the potential future challenges of protecting information. She also provided valuable insight on leadership and her experiences breaking barriers in the fields of computer science and mathematics.
and
On August 26, 2024, the National Security Agency (NSA) released a digital copy of a videotaped lecture, "Future Possibilities: Data, Hardware, Software, and People" that Rear Adm. Grace Hopper gave to the NSA workforce on August 19, 1982. This lecture highlights technological foundational principles, valuable perspectives on leadership and shared experiences overcoming challenges in computer science and math. The legacy of Rear Adm. Grace Hopper continues to echo across the intelligence community to light the path for women in STEM.
The NSA has published via YouTube but has hopefully learned from the experience and has retained a local archival copy.
Previously:
(2023) Misconceptions Put Women Off STEM Subjects
(2018) A Female Engineer's Opinion On Why Fewer Women Go In To Tech
(2017) Women in STEM - Recruitment Efforts Counterproductive
Related Stories
Research into the obvious, but someone has finally done it: Three women researchers have studied the behavior of undergraduates in STEM fields, and concluded that there basically is no problem. From the abstract:
"The results show that high school academic preparation, faculty gender composition, and major returns have little effect on major switching behaviors, and that women and men are equally likely to change their major in response to poor grades in major-related courses. Moreover, women in male-dominated majors do not exhibit different patterns of switching behaviors relative to their male colleagues."
Furthermore current recruitment efforts to attract more women tend to be counterproductive. In an interview, the primary author says:
"Society keeps telling us that STEM fields are masculine fields, that we need to increase the participation of women in STEM fields, but that kind of sends a signal that it's not a field for women, and it kind of works against keeping women in these fields."
One of our female students told me that the women are interviewed endlessly, for one project or another: "tell us about your experience", "are you doing ok", "have you experienced sexism", and on, and on. That alone is enough to make them question their career choice.
Over the last several months, I’ve witnessed many controversial discussions among my friends, in my San Francisco community, and on online forums about James Demore’s memorandum. People of both genders are wrestling with the fact that fewer women go into computer science and trying to find explanations that balance their experience, empathy, and ethical aspirations. I’ve heard lots of good-intentioned people consider discouraging theories of biological superiority because they can’t find any other compelling explanation (like this post on HackerNews, for example). As a woman who studied computer science, worked at some of the top tech firms, and has founded a software startup, I’d like to share my take on why fewer women go into CS and my opinion on how to address the issue.
[...] I graduated from Stanford with a BS in Mathematical & Computational Sciences in 2015, interned at Apple as a software engineer, and worked as an Associate Product Manager at Google 2015-2017. In October, I founded a video editing website called Kapwing and am working on the startup full-time. Although I’m only 25, I’ve already seen many of my female friends choose majors/careers outside of STEM and have been inside of many predominately-male classes, organizations, and teams.
This article is one person’s humble perspective, and I do not speak for every woman in tech. But hopefully having the view of someone who has “been there” can help people trying to understand why there are fewer women in tech.
Young women seem to be less drawn to degrees in science or technology. A sociological study has revealed that outdated gender stereotypes play a major role:
Why do so few female school leavers with good grades in mathematics choose to study a technical subject – despite the high salaries and good employment prospects in the STEM sector? This question has long preoccupied the social sciences, especially as studies show that girls and boys do equally well in mathematics at school.
It is possible that socially embedded gender stereotypes play a role, such as: men think logically and in abstract terms, women are more creative; men should be the breadwinners, women take care of the family; men are competitive, women are more risk-averse. A study by Benita Combet from the Department of Sociology at the University of Zurich has now shown that some of these ingrained beliefs do indeed influence people's subject choices.
[...] "Especially with regard to factors such as logical thinking style and technical skills, strong gender stereotypes still exist, which obviously significantly influence the decisions of female high school students," says Combet. "We should therefore continue to work on challenging and questioning these fixed beliefs." With regard to analytical thinking, for example, it has by no means been scientifically proven that there are differences between men and women. Moreover, the ability to think analytically is a basic requirement for almost every subject area.
Combet also believes schoolchildren should be given better and more detailed information about future subject choices: "Many of their current perceptions are not accurate." For example, many believe that to be good at engineering, all you need is an affinity for technology. In fact, says Combet, "interpersonal and creative skills are also important in engineering, for example working in a team to develop new products."
Journal Reference:
Benita Combet, Women's aversion to majors that (seemingly) require systemizing skills causes gendered field of study choice, European Sociological Review, 2023; https://doi.org/10.1093/esr/jcad021
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mcgrew on Wednesday August 28 2024, @11:45PM (4 children)
As you almost certainly know, she invented modern programming. Before her work you had to be an excellent mathematician to be able to program a computer.
Impeach Donald Palpatine and his sidekick Elon Vader
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Frosty Piss on Thursday August 29 2024, @01:54AM (3 children)
No. She played a large role in the development of "modern programming", she did not develop modern programming by herself.
(Score: 2, Informative) by mcgrew on Thursday August 29 2024, @02:17PM (1 child)
No, she didn't invent modern programming by herself, she invented the idea of programming languages. Before her, you had to be an advanced mathematician to program computers.
She invented FORTRAN, the first programming language.
Impeach Donald Palpatine and his sidekick Elon Vader
(Score: 2) by Frosty Piss on Thursday August 29 2024, @03:10PM
No, she did not invent, by herself, FORTRAN.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Frosty Piss on Thursday August 29 2024, @03:14PM
FORTRAN was developed at IBM primarily by John Backus and his team.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2024, @01:59AM
Ladies and gentlemen
[REDACTED]
Thank you very much
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday August 29 2024, @04:54AM (3 children)
Somewhere around 35:00 on the second video, Adm Hopper talks about leadership. Yep, even back then, leadership was being lost. An enlisted man never evaluates the officers he works for, or works with. But I did. Some of my officers at that time were real leaders. Others were something else. Adm Hopper calls them managers. I had other names for them, but managers works well enough.
Since I've left the Navy, I've only rarely seen leadership in action. That, mostly on construction sites. Virtually everything is run by managers today, who couldn't inspire a starving man to eat a T-bone steak.
We've often talked about MBAs ruining businesses on this site. Adm Hopper nailed it, all the way back in the 1980s. She would have a lot to say if she were still around to see where Boeing has gone. Boeing, and all the rest of the business world.
Damned good presentation on her part, and I'm glad to have the opportunity to listen to it.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ElizabethGreene on Thursday August 29 2024, @02:52PM
In business, I suspect that leadership can be a double-edged sword. A business that considers people to be resources that can be interchanged and replaced suffers far more serious harm losing a leader than a manager. I wonder if that's why the trait isn't actively developed.
I can't recall the last time I worked under someone that I felt would, and would be competent to, jump in the trenches if things went south.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday August 29 2024, @04:30PM
+1 Insightful on the lecture as well. I just watched the first five minutes and want to watch the rest, but that much was clearheaded and clearly presented with what seems to be falsifiable [iu.edu] observations.
And most importantly, a summary of ~30 (?) years of experience from an intelligent person in one environment continuously observing and being part of changes over that time, at the ground level to 10e3 feet. Making this recording available to the general public for free, presented in the first person, is obviously one of the things that my tax dollars should be spent on.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by OrugTor on Thursday August 29 2024, @04:33PM
I was lucky enough to attend a keynote speech given by Hopper at a UFO (UI framework) convention in the mid-eighties. It was all insightful as well as entertaining but I particularly remember her views on managers. She made it clear she had no use for "leaders" who were no more than technically ignorant bureaucrats.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Thursday August 29 2024, @08:27PM
So AMPEX SMPTE A is a NSA-proof dead media format now, BRUTAL.
Some broadcast history. Type A was from the 60s and was a disaster and frankly didn't work up to broadcast standards. By the 70s they had type C which was ridiculously successful and can't possibly be considered a dead format, there's just too much legacy content sitting in vaults. UMatic was the format of the 80s. Then the pros went thru a difficult and painful era of are we analog or digital. Betacam is different than consumer grade Betamax and digital Betacam is a whole other kettle of fish and next thing you know its all variations on flash. I am not an expert on professional video but at a couple jobs I was pro-video-adjacent so this is based on coffee machine level gossip years ago.
The thing is type C and UMatic and Betacam were so incredibly popular I can't imagine needing to reach out to gain access... must have been type A, but WTF were they doing recording stuff to type A in 1982? Some kind of hand-me-down hardware being used?
Also only type A and type C were 1-inch tape, the others are smaller, I just checked Wikipedia to verify. So it "had to be" A or C, and C was just too popular to be a dead format even in 2024. Possible it was some obscure "value added feature" varient that required a special deck.