A very happy Ada Lovelace day to you all! In honor of the day I thought I would post a few of my favorite tech talks given by women.

Sarah Allen – Teaching Code Literacy

When I first invited Sarah to speak at Strange Loop 2011 about her efforts at creating a tool for teaching programming (Pie), I had doubts whether it would be a topic that would draw interest at Strange Loop. I don’t get a chance to see many talks when I’m running a conference but I stopped in at the beginning and found a large crowd on the edges of their seat listening to Sarah speaking eloquently and passionately on the importance of teaching programming.

I’ve written more about my response to the talk here but suffice it to say that Sarah’s talk inspired me to action and I will soon be teaching my second class to kids.

Hilary Mason – Machine Learning: A Love Story

I was searching for the perfect opening keynote for Strange Loop 2010 and was very lucky to stumble upon Hilary and asked if she was available. When she sent me the abstract, I knew that I had found the perfect match for a Strange Loop kickoff. Hilary’s talk was technical, funny, and personal and a hit with the attendees. It set the tone for the rest of the conference and was really a joy to see.

Carin Meier – Why is a Monad Like a Writing Desk?

Sometimes an abstract comes over the call for presentations for a conference and you recognize immediately that this is what you’ve been waiting for, like this one. I was really excited to see this talk at Clojure/West 2012 and it was actually even better than I expected. I love this kind of story-driven tech talk and I think it’s a great example of a different kind of talk that we would see more of if there were more female developers and speakers in the tech world.

I posted a bit about my commitment to gender diversity at Strange Loop this week – these kinds of talks are a great example why I think it’s important.