75 years ago computers were human.

They were called computers because they did maths by hand. But that was about to change.

75 years ago computers were human.

They were called computers because they did maths by hand. But that was about to change.

It was the 1950s and it was commonplace to do calculations by hand. It would take weeks for one equation. The end of the decade brought the introduction of an electronic computer that could make these calculations in a matter of hours. This put fear into the human computers who feared redundancy.

Dorothy Vaughan recognised the threat of this new technology. She went to the library and did research about these computers. She discovered you’d need to learn fortran, a new coding language. She learned the language and spent two years training her team.

Dorothy Vaughan and her team were an under appreciated all female all black team working in a segregated America. So there was no debate about who would be the first to go when redundancies started.

The electronic computer could crunch numbers, but it still needed people who understood the 𝘸𝘩𝘺 and 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 of the equations. Dorothy and her team mastered the electronic computers fortran language and became an in demand team at NASA, at a time when discrimination was rife. They successfully aided in the efforts to get Americans to the moon.

In the mid 1950s there were around 400 human computers by the mid 1960s that role did not exist. Most were reassigned to less skilled roles or contracts were not renewed. Dorothy’s team of around 30 women survived this transition.

I came to know of this story through the movie Hidden Figures which is based on a true story from a well-researched book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly.

The lesson for us in 2025 is to recognise technology coming for our jobs is not new. It was as disruptive for them in the 1950s as it is for us now. The key lesson here is to always be a student of your craft and environment. Always be tool, technique and process agnostic. Don’t get attached to one way of working and you will spot the opportunities for longevity in your profession.

Discrimination may look different in 2025, but it still rears its head. We have a reference to a team of black women who showed us how to show up for work. It’s never too late to learn something new and when you do, take others along with you like Dorothy did.