QueerAF Podcast: Season Six, Episode Two – Lynn Conway pioneered the technology that makes it possible to use the device you're about to listen to this podcast on now. She even coined a term for why her story has been forgotten. With a contribution to computer science in almost parallel importance to Alan Turing, producer Chuck Copenspire explains the Conway Effect, of why her story is only just beginning to be celebrated - listen now in your podcast app
In this episode:
Lynn Conway is a highly accomplished and increasingly celebrated computer scientist. Using her knowledge of early modern computing tech and programming, she designed the microchips that power our devices today.
You literally wouldn’t be able to listen to this podcast we've made about her, without her work.
In this episode of the QueerAF podcast, producer Chuck Copenspire digs through precious archive material of Lynn, telling her story in her own words, mixed with interviews with her contemporaries and historians to ask: what is her legacy, and why has it so rare for people to know her work?
Because like Alan Turing, her work in computer science was pivotal to how the whole world works today.
The history lesson we never had
The episode was produced as part of the QueerAF launchpad initiative Trans+ History Week. Season six of the podcast has been made by six Trans+ creatives who have been paid, mentored, and supported by the not-for-profit publisher QueerAF to make a show.
Each creative has also been given equipment to make the show, which they can keep forever, as part of an initiative to help more Trans+ creatives break into and succeed in the audio industry.
Make sure to subscribe for the whole season ahead. A new mini-documentary episode will be available on your feeds every Monday from now through Pride month.
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Behind the scenes, QueerAF's podcast is way more than about creating delightful sounds for your ears. The project is signposted by industry leaders and diversity initiatives because we help under-represented queer voices build media, audio and podcast careers.
QueerAF memberships helps to directly fund the emerging LGBTQIA+ creatives we mentor - and the next series of the podcast. It lets us give them that crucial kickstart to their exciting career ahead.
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