A Women’s Day reflection on curiosity, history, and the women shaping technology.

I am the first woman in my bloodline to work in technology. Even today, I often notice there are still fewer women than men in many technical teams. Having started my career in manufacturing after studying chemical engineering, being in male-dominated environments felt so normal that I barely registered it.

What shaped my journey in technology, however, was not a job title or a defined role. It was curiosity.

Early in my career, I realized spreadsheets could only take problem-solving so far. Wanting deeper insights, I started learning programming alongside my work, long before “data roles” were clearly defined.

I was simply a manager curious enough to experiment with data, build models, and lead analytics-driven initiatives. Over time, that curiosity naturally pulled me deeper into technology.

And it was that same curiosity that made me wonder about something else. If fields like engineering had historically been male-dominated, had technology always looked the same? Had women always been a minority in computing too?

What I discovered surprised me.

Women have been shaping technology from the very beginning.

One of the most remarkable examples is Margaret Hamilton, the computer scientist who led the team responsible for writing the onboard software for NASA’s Apollo Guidance Computer. In 1969, when Apollo 11 was descending toward the moon, the spacecraft’s computer suddenly began displaying multiple alarm codes just moments before landing. In a mission where every second mattered, those alarms could have forced NASA to abort the landing.

But the system did not fail.

Hamilton and her team had designed the software with a revolutionary idea for the time. If the computer became overloaded, it would prioritize critical tasks and discard less important ones. That design decision allowed the system to recover and continue guiding the lunar module.

Because of that software architecture, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were able to land safely on the moon.

It is remarkable to think that the code which helped humanity reach the moon was written under the leadership of a woman.

And yet, historically, this was not unusual.

Some of the first programmers in history were women. During World War II, six women programmed the ENIAC, one of the earliest electronic computers ever built. Programming the ENIAC meant physically configuring the machine with cables and switches and designing the logical processes needed to perform complex calculations.

These women were not simply operators. They were pioneers of programming itself. The techniques they developed would later become foundational to modern software engineering.

For decades, however, their contributions went largely unrecognized. Early photographs of ENIAC often showed the women standing beside the machine without acknowledging that they were the people who had programmed it.

Looking deeper into the history of computing reveals another surprising fact. In 1984, women earned nearly 37 percent of computer science degrees in the United States. Over the following decades that number declined significantly, dropping to around 18 percent by 2010. Today, women represent roughly 26 to 28 percent of the global technology workforce, with participation varying across fields.

The reasons behind this shift are complex, from how personal computers were marketed in the 1980s to cultural perceptions around programming. But one thing becomes clear when you step back and look at the broader history.

Women were never outsiders in computing. They helped build it.

Reflecting on this history has made me think differently about my own journey into technology. Learning to code out of curiosity and building solutions for real-world problems does not feel like stepping into a completely new space. In many ways, it feels like becoming part of a story that women helped shape long before the tech industry became what it is today.

What makes that story even more exciting today is the growing number of women who are shaping technology across fields, from artificial intelligence and data science to product design and digital innovation. Many of them are not only building impactful technologies, but also mentoring, supporting, and encouraging other women to enter the field.

Every generation of women in technology leaves the door a little more open for the next.

The women who programmed the first computers and wrote the software that helped land humans on the moon laid foundations that continue to support the digital world we live in today. And the women building technology today are carrying that legacy forward, leading teams, driving innovation, and inspiring many more to follow.

Perhaps the most exciting part of this story is that it is still unfolding.

And as more women step into technology, they are not just participating in the industry. They are shaping its future.