Finding Ada: Celebrating Smart Women Everywhere.

I’ve been running around looking for Ada today, because it’s Ada Lovelace Day. Who the heck was Ada?

According to the Finding Ada website “Ada Lovelace was one of the world’s first computer programmers, and one of the first people to see computers as more than just a machine for doing sums. She wrote programmes for Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, a general-purpose computing machine, despite the fact that it was never built. She also wrote the very first description of a computer and of software. Read more on Wikipedia.”

Last year, a group of people decided to raise the profile of women in tech and science by getting a pledge from 1,000 people to blog, vlog, report, etc. about a woman they personally admire in those fields on March 24, Ada Lovelace Day.  I was one of the close to 2,000 folks who spoke up to support women in tech.

In my post for Ada Lovelace Day last year “Mena, My Grandma and the Webernets?” I talked a little bit about how Six Apart (the major blogging platform service company run by Mena Trott) impacted my life and my participation in social media.

It really is just as easy this year as it was last year to choose and highlight one woman on her hustle in the tech industry. We’ll keep it short and sweet.

Dina Kaplan, 2009. Photo Credit: CC Chapman

Meet Dina Kaplan, co-founder of blip.tv. Blip.tv is the official video platform for my food website and, like me, Dina kickstarted her professional life as a journalist, working everywhere from MTV News (and on Rock the Vote, in ’96) to DC to local broadcast here in NYC, the country’s number 1 television market.

I’m see Dina at industry events frequently and she is constantly on her hustle. But she also shows that graciousness and ability to stand still and actually listen that I really admire. Not only that, but Blip.tv is an elegant, easy-to-use platform that I believe will only continue to blow up.

She is super smart, well-respected and she is also part of great team. Everyone I’ve encountered at Blip.tv, whether it be from the support team, to the executives they have blogging on Tumblr to random folks I’ve met and only later found out where they worked, they have been across the board nice people who are also knowledgeable and approachable.

I’m a big believer that your team is reflective of you and how you run your company, so I have to give major props to Dina for having surrounded herself with capable, motivated folks.

Big ups, Dina. You rock it.

What about you? What women do you admire professionally, especially in the fields of technology and science? Please leave a comment and teach me about your favorites.

Want to pay tribute to your trailblazers and give women a boost worldwide? You can submit your creative project at any point today, March 24, 2010. Details here: http://findingada.com/