Dame Stephanie ‘Steve’ Shirley, technology pioneer, dies aged 91

Visionary Technology pioneer and philanthropist Dame Stephanie Shirley died at the age of 91.

The entrepreneur, who broke the border, came to London only weeks before the eruption of the Second World War, and in the 1950s and 1960s, he continued to be a computer industry and a pioneer of women’s rights.

In 1962, the software company founded free programmers who hired almost only women and shaking the technology industry and donated about £ 70 million to help autism and IT projects in the next life.

He was very smart and really challenging, even Adopting the name “Steve” To help him in a world of male -dominated technology.

He died on August 9th, and his family was in an Instagram on Monday.

Dame Stephanie was inspired for many women in technology, including me.

The pioneering and controversial decision to recruit women’s coders and data inputs was far beyond his time and changed many lives.

He had a difficult life and made him difficult.

He was Stoic in grief, and in the face of a series of traumatic experiences, at least he showed an extraordinary power to the public.

Their childhood came from a generation shaped by the persecution of World War II.

In 1933, Dame Stephanie, who was born in Vera Buchthal in Dortmund, German, was a judge.

He hoped that being in a ruling position would protect his family, but they fled to Vienna, the capital of Austria, as the Nazi government increased his persecution to German Jews.

He was one of the thousands of Jewish children fleeing the Nazis and came to England as a part of Kindertransport – the British rescue effort in the months before World War II was trained by loving parents.

Determined not to be defined by his traumatic childhood, Dame Stephanie established a company designed to provide jobs for women with children.

After he started as a scientific officer, in 1962, he later founded FI Group free programmers, who were still known as Xansa.

The company has changed the landscape for women working in technology by offering flexible working practices.

297 of the first 300 staff were women.

The success of the company left Dame Stephanie with a reserve of approximately 150 million pounds, Donated for good reasons.

His late son Giles was autistic and was an early member of the national autistic society, and the charity is financing many projects with the Shirley Foundation, especially autism.

He has currently established autism in Kingwood, a service that supports autistic adults in Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.

In addition, Berkshire helped the establishment of Prior Court, a school for autistic youth in Thatcham.

The last time I saw him, I introduced him at an event on stage. He was weak, but as always, extremely eye -catching and completely fascinating.

He said that he knew that he had come to the end of his life and that he feels that he was sincerely.

There was a strong moral compass and he believed to use his reserve well. And he never kept up with sexism.

He spent his whole life refusing to comply with many gender stereotypes and clichés of society.

Dame Stephanie has passed a lot of time since it started to sign a letter as Steve to attract the attention of male business contacts.

However, technology continues to be a male -dominated industry, and women are still screaming out loud to be heard.

Steve was one of the first and shouted in the highest voice.

Charlotte Edwards’s additional reports