Professor Susan H. Rodger (Professor of the Practice, Duke University), Katy Dickinson, and Jessica Dickinson Goodman collaborated on this project. They have never all met in the same place, but through the wonders of Skype they keep rolling on. Duke University is a project sponsor and Everwise was a project sponsor for the first and second edition; without them, this project would not have been possible. One of our daughter projects received encouragement and support from Symantec–thank you!
History of this project
This card deck is one part of a project that’s been going on for years and involved a number of passionate volunteers. It is associated with the “CRA-W and Anita Borg Institute Wikipedia Project – Writing Wikipedia Pages for Notable Women in Computing” work that Katy Dickinson, Professor Susan H. Rodger (Professor of the Practice, Duke University), and others have worked on for years. Learn more and get involved in that work here: bit.ly/NotableW
The idea for a card deck started during an annual camping trip in the high Sierras. Katy and Jessica (mother and daughter) were discussing Katy’s joint research poster with Susan. Jessica suggested a card deck to highlight 54 of the women as a way to help other technical women interact with the stories of leaders in the profession. They spent hours designing some prototypes, and when Susan saw and loved them, they decided this could be fun.
Katy wrote the text and tracked down the majority of the photos; Susan reached out for permissions, gave feedback on design, and helped curate the list; and Jessica combined all of the information into intuitively designed cards, handled the printing logistics, and product management.
Together, the team ran a successful Kickstarter that beat its goal within 3 days and ended up with 500% of its goal. The project also birthed daughter projects which you can read more about here.
What does “notable” mean?
Women in this card deck were selected after receiving multiple, high-level awards from more than one institution, such as being named an ACM Fellow, IEEE Fellow, and receiving the Turing Award. Our deck also seeks to portray the true diversity of women in computing both current and historical, showcasing professionals from a variety of nations, backgrounds, gender identities, orientations and abilities. There are a dozen or more different groupings of notable women we could have turned into this deck; you can make your own using the instructions at the bottom of this page.
Other ways to get involved
Go to bit.ly/NotableW to find information about other notable women in computing, then commit to writing or editing a Wikipedia page for a woman without one. Here you’ll find a list of 330+ incredible women, many of whom have little to no presence online. You can help fix that.
If you got a first edition deck at the Hopper Conference, send us a picture! We’d love to post it as an update (mention @JessiDG, @katy_dickinson or @shrodger). If you have a Ladies Who Tech poker night, send us a picture. We’d love to see our work in the wild.
