While spending the summer of 2007 in Aspen, Colo rado, Walter Isaacson and his wife, Cathy, hound ed their daughter to finish her compulsory college essay. Finally, after hearing enough nagging , Betsy Isaacson locked herself in her bedroom until she emerged with a completed twopage essay.
2007年夏天待在科羅拉多州艾斯班時，華特．艾薩克森和妻子凱蒂不斷催促女兒完成大學作文作業。最後，受夠了嘮叨，貝琪．艾薩克森將自己關進臥室，出來時完成了兩頁的短文。
"Congratulations, Betsy," Mr. Isaacson recalls saying . "What did you write it about?"
艾薩克森回憶說：「恭喜你，貝琪。你寫了誰？」
"Ada Lovelace," she replied. This was followed by a long, awkward silence. Mr. Isaacson, who was just beginning work on a biography of Steve Jobs, could not recall who Ms. Lovelace was.
她答道：「艾達．洛夫萊斯。」接著是尷尬的一長段緘默。剛動筆撰寫史蒂夫．賈伯斯傳的艾薩克森想不起洛夫萊斯是何許人。
"She's one of the women who has been written out of the history of computing," his daughter replied. Though some in tech know of her, Ms. Lovelace, who lived from 1815 to 1852, is an unknown.
他女兒答道：「她是電算史遺漏的一位女性。」雖然科技界有人聽過這名字，1815年出生，1852年去世的洛夫萊斯，卻是個沒沒無聞的人物。
It's no secret that people are often erased from the history of bigtech companies. It's so prevalent in Silicon Valley that it is known as "The Creation Myth." But what may come as a surprise is the number of women who played a pivotal role but who are now forgotten.
大科技公司的歷史經常將人們一筆勾消，這不是什麼祕密。這是矽谷司空見慣的事，廣被稱為「創世神話」。令人訝異的是，在其中扮演關鍵角色，如今卻遭人遺忘的女性，竟然如此之多。
That is a central theme in Mr. Isaacson's new book, "The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution ."
這是艾薩克森新書《創新者：一群駭客、天才和怪才如何創建數位革命》的中心主題。
Each chapter reinforces the core premise that Mr. Isaacson made after 15 years of research: That every technology innovation, whether programming code, transistors, personal computers or the Internet, was built by groups of people (usually by borrowing from past ideas). But while a number of the men have become celebrities, most of the women are lost .
新書的每一章節都在強調艾薩克森歷15年研究後歸結出的同一核心前提：每一個技術創新，無論是程式代碼、電晶體、個人電腦或網際網路，都是一群人的心血結晶（通常是借用前人的點子）。儘管一些男性最後成為名人，多數的女性卻從此不為人知。
Ms. Lovelace's role in tech is so paramount that her story is the opening and closing chapter. An English mathematician and writer, she wrote the first-ever computer algorithm, put forth the idea that humanities and technology should coexist and dreamed up the concept of artificial intelligence.
洛夫萊斯在科技上的角色如此之高，因此新書第一章和最後一章都是寫她。她是位英國數學家、作家，寫了第一個電算演算法，提出人文科學應與科技共存的概念，且想像出人工智慧的概念。
"Ada Lovelace defined the digital age," Mr. Isaacson said in a recent interview about the book . "Yet she, along with all these other women, was ignored or forgotten."
艾薩克森最近就此書接受訪問時說：「艾達．洛夫萊斯為數位年代下了定義，然而她和所有這些女性卻都遭到忽略或遺忘。」
In her day, she was all but ignored, too. In 1843, when Ms. Lovelace's seminal computing notes were presented to Scientific Memoirs, an English scientific journal , the editors told her colleague Charles Babbage he should "manfully" sign his name in lieu of hers.
在洛夫萊斯的年代，她也完全遭到漠視。1843年，洛夫萊斯的研討會電算筆記被人送到英國科學期刊《科學回憶錄》時，雜誌編輯告訴洛夫萊斯的同事巴貝奇，「像個男子漢般」簽署自己的名字，取代她的。
The exclusion of women has not only reinforced stereotypes about women and technology, but has arguably had a self-fulfilling effect in America. In 1985, 37 percent of computer science undergraduate degrees were earned by women. By 2010, that number had fallen by half to 18 percent. Now just 0.4 percent of all female college freshmen say they plan to major in computer science.
女性被排除在外，不僅強化了人們對婦女和科技界的刻板印象，似乎在美國還產生了自我實現效應。1985年，37％的電算學大學學位由女性取得。但到2010年少了一半，只剩18％。現在大學女性新生僅0.4％表示想主修電算學。
This is visible at major tech companies. At Google, men make up 83 percent of engineers. Of Google's 36 t o p - r a n k i n g executives and managers, only three are women. At Apple, male tech employees account for 80 percent of the work force. And at Facebook, 85 percent of the company's tech workers are men.
這點在大科技公司明顯可見。在谷歌，男性占工程師的83％。谷歌36位最上層主管與經理，僅3位是女性。在蘋果，男性技術員工占總人力的80％。在臉書，技術員工85％是男性。
"Stereotypes are very reinforcing because as human beings we expect what is familiar," said Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook . Ms. Sandberg said that it is imperative to debunk the myth that women are uninterested in technology .
臉書營運長雪柔．桑德伯格說：「刻板印象的力量非常強大，因為身為人類，我們會習以為常。」桑德伯格說，我們一定要揭穿女性對科技不感興趣這個迷思。
Reshma Saujani of Girls Who Code, which aims to close the gender gap in computer science and technology, agrees.
非營利組織「代碼女孩」」以消除電算與科技界兩性差距為成立宗旨，該組織的雷希瑪．索亞尼同意這項看法。
"If women had been more prominently talked about in computing, both in the history books and schools, we literally would not have the lack of women programmers that we do today," Ms. Saujani said. "It's about role models. You can't be what you cannot see."
索亞尼說：「如果我們以顯著地位多談一些電算界的女性，無論是歷史書裡或在學校，應該就不會像今天這樣，女程式設計師這麼少。這與角色模範有關，看不見前人，就不會有後繼者。」
Part of the problem, Mr. Isaacson writes in "The Innovators," is how the creation myth seeks to make heroes out of individuals, rather than the group.
艾薩克森在《創新者》中寫道，部分問題出在，創世神話只讓個人變成英雄，而不是整個團體。
He said, "Most of the great advances of the digital age were done collaboratively ."
他說：「但數位年代的大躍進，多數都是協力達成的。」
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