Communications of the ACM
If Knowledge Is Power, Then Coders Will Inherit the Earth
Fereshteh Forough (left) and Barbara Liskov (right) are helping to lead the tech sector towards greater diversity and inclusion.
Fereshteh Forough founded Code to Inspire, the first coding school for girls in Afghanistan, in 2015. Born in Iran to Afghani parents, the family returned to Afghanistan after Fereshteh had finished high school. Though she had no background in computer science, she passed the entrance exam for the subject at Herat University and earned a degree in computer science. She earned her master's degree in Berlin before returning to lecture at Herat University for three years. In 2012, she relocated to New York City.
Barbara Liskov in 1968 became one of the first women in the United States to earn a Ph.D. in computer science. In 2008, in recognition of her work in the field, she was given the prestigious ACM A.M. Turing Award for developing the Liskov substitution principle. She's currently a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Forough and Liskov discuss their respective approaches to programming and computer science, how their backgrounds have influenced their views on the power of code, and on the challenges and opportunities of being a woman in the field.
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