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Forget No Bra Day, today we should celebrate Ada Lovelace Day

Forget No Bra Day, today we should celebrate Ada Lovelace Day

We're sure you're too busy at work to to notice '#nobraday' is trending on Twitter.

The social media 'campaign' is supposedly to raise awareness of breast cancer, but like many before it, it is not officially supported by charities and contributes very little apart from sexualising disease.

However, women around the world actually do get to celebrate something way better today - it's Ada Lovelace Day!

Ada Lovelace was the brilliant 19th century mathematician who is credited with writing the first ever algorithm intended to be carried out by a machine, and is thus the mother of modern computer programming.

For the last few years the second Tuesday in October has become an opportunity to celebrate the achievements of women working in the male-dominated fields of science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem).

There are several Ada Lovelace Day events in cities and universities around the world today, which you can check out here.

The founders hope that raising the profile of women in Stem will encourage more girls and young women to take up careers in science and tech.

This year, the hashtags #IlooklikeanEngineer, #IlooklikeaScientist, #IlooklikeaGameDev and #IlooklikeaDoctor among others have been trending as women post selfies and messages explaining how proud they are of the work they do:

And if you need any further inspiration, check out this open letter a male engineering student wrote to the women in his classes about why they're unequal:

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