Silicon City exhibit and Civic Hall

The Silicon City exhibit definitely did a wonderful job in displaying the advancements of technology that we have seen involving computer and computer systems. We’ve come a long way from when IBM first created personalized general use computers technologically, and the technological systems get more and more improved each year. One of the things that were noted about the various images featured in the exhibit was the lack of female presence or female acknowledgment. Many of the images featured the team of computer engineers who were almost predominantly men at the time, or if there were women shown they were almost always unidentified. I found this extremely negative but attributed it to the time periods. Then of course, I stumbled upon Grace Hopper’s exhibit and was immediately impressed by her ambition as being one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computers and she taught a new computer language to students called COBOL.

Civic Hall was very different from what i expected. I expected to see a more run down, and basic array of technological innovation. I was quite impressed by the various workers who seemed very enthusiastic and genuinely looking to improve the lives of the masses. The speakers put very much emphasis on the fact that they encouraged people who wanted to get into civic tech, they could do so by “identifying a problem, and working to find a solution”. This is important because it emphasizes that in its purest state, civic tech works to improve the lives of the many, rather than lead to an increase in profits or business. One of the speakers was a woman who created a website to help individuals who were getting any type of federal aid and help them arrange their finances in a matter in which their information and information regarding their situations were laid out for them.