Dr Sue Black

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 20 May 2018

⏱️ 38 minutes

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Summary

Dr. Sue Black is a computer scientist, academic and social entrepreneur. She was instrumental in saving Bletchley Park, the home of vital codebreaking during the second world war. Currently an honorary professor at UCL, she founded BCS Women for women in science and the social enterprise Tech Mums, which teaches parents about computing. She is also on an advisory board for the government's digital services. Born in Fareham, Hampshire, she was 12 when her mother died of a brain haemorrhage. She left school and home at the earliest legal age, 16, and by the age of 20 she was the mother of three children. She returned to education by taking a maths access course at night school which led to a degree in computing from London South Bank University in 1993. She gained a PhD in software engineering in 2001 and became a lecturer. She was Head of Department of Computing Science at the University of Westminster before leaving in 2012 to become a technology evangelist. In 2016 She was awarded the Order of the British Empire for services to for services to technology. Presenter: Kirsty Young Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the BBC.
0:03.0	Hello, I'm Kristi Young.
0:05.0	Welcome to Desert Island Discs, where every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, the book and the luxury item
0:12.0	that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away on a desert island.
0:16.0	For rights reasons, the music on these podcast versions is shorter than in the original broadcast.
0:22.0	You can find over 2,000 more editions to listen to and download on the Desert Island Discs website.
0:31.0	Music
0:48.0	My castaway this week is the computer scientist and social entrepreneur Dr. Sue Black.
0:55.0	She's done will really rather a lot.
0:57.0	Here are some of the highlights.
0:58.0	She was instrumental in saving Bletchley Park, ensuring Britain's World War II code breaking site was preserved for the nation.
1:06.0	Her hard work on encouraging women into the tech sector is impressive too.
1:11.0	She set up an industry initiative that seen over 10,000 females skill up and learn to code.
1:17.0	She's also the founder of an organisation called Tech Mums, enabling women to get computer savvy to better understand what their kids are up to online.
1:25.0	And she's a member of the government's advisory board for all things digital.
1:30.0	Given that maths is her abiding passion, I wonder what early odds she would have given herself on doing so well.
1:36.0	She left home at 16, was married by the time she was 20, and just five years later was living in a women's refuge with her three young kids.
1:45.0	She says, I always say to people, if I can do it so can you.
1:50.0	All I did was work out where I wanted to be and put one foot in front of the other until I got there.
1:56.0	Welcome Dr. Sue Black.
1:58.0	Most of us I think can understand that very straightforward logic.
2:02.0	Life so often though gets in the way.
	...

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