by Hollie Nielsen, AWCC Scotland
This month, as part of the Education Team’s focus on Equal Access, I read (ok, I listened to) Let It Go by Dame Stephanie Shirley, CH. The book tells her story from being a Kindertransport refugee from Vienna, to an entrepreneur founding a software company in 1962, to her career as a philanthropist and letting her fortune go. Her arrival as a young child who spoke no English and her subsequent absorption into a middle-aged couple’s life was fascinating. I also really enjoyed learning about the early days of her company, where she employed almost exclusively women. They worked from their homes at hours of their choosing on complex projects, such as the black box for the Concorde. In the early 1960s there was no part-time work, so Dame Shirley was able to attract extremely talented women who wanted to keep working on their own terms after having children. Sometimes it feels like we’ve come a long way since those days; other times, it feels like we haven’t made nearly enough progress. The middle section of the book was less interesting, as Dame Shirley grew her company. The final section was about her career as a philanthropist, mainly raising money for children on the autism spectrum. Dame Shirley’s only child had such severe autism that he had to be institutionalized, which was heartbreaking for her. She went on to found Prior’s House, a facility that houses and teaches children on the autism spectrum. Dame Shirley is a role model for women in STEM careers: her pioneering company let women see that they could have successful careers in software development. Because you can’t be what you can’t see.
