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Good morning everyone.

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>> Good morning.

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>> Just to get it out of the way, if you hear a fire alarm,

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please follow the green signs there will be no test this morning.

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So if you hear it, run in an orderly fashion.

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>> [LAUGH] >> I'm Alex Wolf and

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I am a professor at Imperial College London in the department of computing.

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And I also serve as president of the association for

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computing machinery, the ACM.

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And it's a great honor, and pleasure to be able to

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welcome you to this symposium, and this celebration.

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ACM is the oldest and largest international

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society of computing scientists, engineers and students.

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And so ACM, of course owes a lot

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to people like Ada Lovelace for creating a discipline that

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has had amazing impact and whose impact yet

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I think we don't even, whose bounds I don't think we know or can yet appreciate.

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Ada Lovelace is clearly one of the heroes of computing,

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and her name has really become synonymous with the birth of computing.

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Dare I say that her name has become more,

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associated or prominent in some ways than Charles Babbage,

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which I think is an interesting turn of history.

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I know that my first experience with Ada was,

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I realizes that she's 200 years old, but I did have an experience with Ada.

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Was as a young, very young student [LAUGH] and

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my first serious programming language was named after her.

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The Aida programming language.

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So whenever I fly on a triple seven or

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I take the Paris metro or the New York City subway system,

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or sadly, watch a Tomahawk missile being launched.

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I think of Ada, and I think of Ada Lovelace, and

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I think it's remarkable how her name has spread among not just us,

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as computer scientists, but also the general public.

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I should say that there are a number of celebrations going on for

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this remarkable anniversary.

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ACM has issued a book authored by Robin Hammerman and Andrew Russell.

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The book is called Ada's Legacy,

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Cultures of Computing from the Victorian to the Digital Age.

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It's a wonderful book that tells the story and

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puts some of her ideas into not only

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the context of her time, but also in the context of our time.

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There's also of course a number of exhibits, a very important exhibit.

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Is at the Weston Library of the Bodleian, sadly just until December 20th.

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So you can see some of her papers.

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And I think this is the first public exhibit of those papers, so

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if you have a chance to go look at that, please do.

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Perhaps while you are in Oxford.

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Another one is at the science museum right next door to Imperial,

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and that one is going until the middle of March.

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And then across the ocean in the US, the computer history museum

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is also celebrating the birth of Ada Lovelace with an exhibit.

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We're talking about how to, ACM is talking with the Computer History Museum

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about turning that into a more permanent exhibit at the museum.

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And that'll be opening tomorrow I believe.

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Tomorrow is the actual birthday.

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Today is also another remarkable birthday.

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Today is the birthday of Grace Hopper,

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admiral Grace Hopper another early pioneer of computing.

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Of course I'd be remiss if I didn't mention another person, George Boole.

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George Boole, who is called the Father of Digital Logic, he

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also is celebrating his 200th birthday this year,

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or celebrated his 200th birthday this year.

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My understanding is they did not actually meet,

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although they were aware of each others' work.

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So let me just quickly give some thanks, there are various

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financial supporters and sponsors, and others involved in the event.

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Google Teheran Francis

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the Clay Mathematics Institute, the London Mathematical Society.

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We'd like to, along with ACM, thank them for their participation and support.

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In fact, there were about 50 Student funded.

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There's 50 students who have been funded to attend this event.

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I think it's wonderful that we are including young people into this

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discussion.

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Because it's they who will carry on her legacy Ada's legacy and

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also be the computing in the next generation.

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I'd like to thank Percy.

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I'd like to thank Vickie Hanson, the vice president of ACM, who's been very involved

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in ACM's participation in these celebrations.

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And of course, I would like to thank Ursula Martin.

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Ursula is certainly the intellectual and spiritual

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energy behind this whole series of celebrations,

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and we owe her a great debt of gratitude for that work.

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And I would like to thank

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Ursula.

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>> [APPLAUSE] >> Okay,

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we have a number of very interesting presentations coming up.

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And without further ado, I'd like to get started with those in this first session.

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Our first speaker is Doron Swade from Royal Holloway.

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And I won't be giving any kind of long introductions.

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But you could read the biographies of the speakers in the back.

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So I will just ask Doron to come up and start his presentation.

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One thing, you know that you are not supposed to bring food and

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drink other than water into the room.

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And, please, for the courtesy of the speaker,

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the courtesy of those around you, I would ask that you please not use your

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laptops and type in to your laptops,

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and prefer that you would close, I say this to my students too.

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I ask them to turn their phones to silent, to close their laptops and

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to pull anything out of their ears that might be sticking in.

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So thank you, Doron, would you like to begin?

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>> [APPLAUSE]