The Lives of Hidden Figures Matter in Computer Science Education

If we want to broaden participation, we must educate our students based on the early 17th-century origins of the word "computer," a human who performs calculations.1 Computers were exclusively human until the early 19th century when English polymath and inventor Charles Babbage introduced the Difference Engine, the first mechanical computer. The term "human computer" was then used to differentiate a person who computes from a mechanical computer. Human computers were often women who undertook long and tedious calculations to power some of the most significant advances in science, industry, and space technology in the 20th century.