Choosing just one woman to spotlight was a challenge – there are many women in technology who have inspired me, but after pouring over histories of Admiral Grace Hopper, Betty Holberton and Ada Lovelace herself, I found myself drawn to one of the early women technologists whose blog I followed, Claire Giordano.

From her about page: Claire Giordano most recently served as the Director of Product Management and User Experience at A9.com, an Amazon.com subsidiary, managing an online advertising service. Prior to Amazon, she worked with Sun Microsystems for 16 years, most recently as the Group Marketing Manager for OpenSolaris, where she was responsible for all outbound and community marketing efforts. Before marketing OpenSolaris, she directed the engineering effort to open source the Solaris operating system. Ms. Giordano has a Bachelor of Science degree in Applied Math/Computer Science from Brown University.

I hope you’ll take some time to read through the many posts celebrating women in technology today, but if nothing else, take some time soon to encourage a young woman to explore the vibrant history of women in technology.