Directors/Producers: Kathy Kleiman, Jon Palfreman, Kate McMahon
Description:
In the United States, women are vastly underrepresented in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) fields, holding under 25% of STEM jobs and a disproportionately low share of STEM undergraduate degrees. Contributing to the problem is that we do not teach our history, including that the pioneers of programming included six brilliant young women. The Computers is the story of how Jean Jennings Bartik, Betty Snyder Holberton, Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer, Kay McNulty Mauchly Antonelli and Frances Bilas Spence programmed the world's first all-electronic, programmable computer as part of a secret WWII project for the US Army. They learned to program without programming languages or tools (for none existed), and their program worked perfectly. Yet, when the ENIAC was unveiled to the press and public in 1946, they were never introduced; the ENIAS Programmers became invisible. Featuring Movietone footage of the 1940s and never-before-seen interviews, The Computers will make students believe that programming careers lie within their grasp, and adults cheer. This is the inspiring story lost for almost 70 years about the founding of technologies we cannot live without—by six incredible women everyone should know!
Biography: Kathy
Kleiman discovered the ENIAC Programmers as an undergraduate at
Harvard. She wrote her senior thesis on how their pivotal role in
early programming was completely missing from computing history. A
decade later, after learning that few of the Programmers were invited
to the ENIAC’s 50th Anniversary, she set out to set the record
straight: to record their oral histories, seek recognition for their
accomplishments and produce a documentary to tell their dramatic
story. The Computers is the culmination of that work. In
speeches and screenings around the world, Kathy shares "The
ENIAC Programmers inspired me to stay in computing at a time when
every other signal in society was urging me to turn away. It is my
great hope that their story will throw open the doors of computing to
all!" Inspired by the ENIAC Programmers, Kathy continued her
studies in computer science. She then managed international data
networks, attended law school and became one of the first attorneys
to enter the field of Internet policy. She is part of the group that
created ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers) where she continues to develop policy for the global domain
name system. Kathy speaks about the ENIAC Programmers (and domain
name policy) in forums around the world. She is the recipient of the
March of Dimes Heroines in Technology Lifetime Achievement Award for
her efforts to preserve the ENIAC Programmers' inspirational story
for generations to come.
