Women in IT

15 KATE RUSSELL

Technology Reporter and Author

Thirty years ago today I turned 16. I was anything but sweet. It was 1984 and although the world wasn’t the exact dystopian future George Orwell had imagined for us, it felt pretty close at times. Nearing the end of my academic career (a process I had been thoroughly annoyed and often confused by) I struggled to stay out of trouble at an all-girls’ school in suburban Hertfordshire, a million miles away from the miners’ strikes happening further north.

My school was a comprehensive, but had recently been converted from a grammar school, so still had the faculty and countenance of a stuffy, old-fashioned ...