Today is Grace Hopper's 108th anniversary. Remembered as the person who invented the term "bug" and for pioneering natural language in computing, her legacy has been to inspire efforts to enhance the career interests of women in computing. In addition, her concern for teaching young people is why Computer Science Education Week is timed to coincide with her birthday.

Grace Brewster Murray Hopper,

December 9,1906- January 1,1992

Born in 1906, Grace Brewster Murray would have had a very different career has it not been for the Navy and the computers that were built to aid the war effort. Prior to joining the US Navy Reserve, she suffered from the disadvantage of being a woman with an interest in technology. Having earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale she could only look forward to teaching maths at no more than high school level - women were not expected to do any more. But Grace did manage to do more.

In 1931 she started to work her way up through the Vassar teaching hierarchy - first as an instructor, then as an assistant professor and finally as an associate professor. Her name changed from Murray to Hopper as a result of marrying Vincent Hopper. They divorced in 1945, an event which left her free to pursue her contributions to computing without having to fit into the stereotype of the time.

After the US entered the Second World War Grace Hopper joined the US Navy Reserve. During the war she served on the Mark I computer programming staff headed by Howard H. Aiken. The  apocryphal story of the "bug" in the machine dates from this period.

The Harvard Mark I, which at best was a slow machine was acting up and giving incorrect results. An internal examination located a faulty relay and there jammed between the contacts was a moth. It was removed and taped into the machine's log book with the note "First ACTUAL bug found".

The log book complete with bug is now in the National Museum of American History

At the end of the war Hopper's request to transfer to the regular Navy was declined due to her age (38). However, she continued to serve in the Navy Reserve. Although she initially retired in 1966, she was recalled to active duty in August 1967 for a six-month period that turned into an indefinite assignment during which she worked on COBOL from 1967 to 1977 and earned the honorific "Mother of COBOL".

When she finally retired in 1986 she was the oldest commissioned officer in the United States Navy and had rank attained the rank of Rear Admiral. So she had defeated ageism as well as sexism and was responsible for the continuous pressure within the industry to make computers and computing more accessible.

Throughout her career Grace Hopper was concerned in promoting programming skills to young people. She is quoted by her biographer Lynn Gilbert as saying:

The most important thing I've accomplished, other than building the compiler, is training young people. They come to me, you know, and say, "Do you think we can do this?" I say, "Try it." And I back 'em up. They need that. I keep track of them as they get older and I stir 'em up at intervals so they don't forget to take chances."

In view of this Grace Hopper was chosen as the personality to embody the aims of Computer Science Education Week and its timing of the second week in December means that the event always coincides with her birthday.

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