'Computer Science Heroes' posters celebrate diversity in tech
A new set of free ‘Computer Science Heroes’ posters is now available for teachers, librarians, and home educators - designed to introduce primary school children to diverse role models in computing.
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Representation matters. When young people can see people like themselves working in tech, computing becomes more relevant and accessible. These fun, cartoon-style posters celebrate computer scientists from a range of backgrounds, helping to show that the subject is for everyone.
The posters were illustrated by former EECS staff member, now professional illustrator, Richard Butterworth, and supported by Professor Paul Curzon’s EPSRC grant. They’re part of the wider Diversity in Computing poster series from the Teaching London Computing and Computer Science for Fun (CS4FN) projects.
UK-based educators can request a free printed set of folded A3 posters, or download them directly.
Meet the Heroes
Each poster features a computer science pioneer and their contribution to the world we live in today:
- Al-Khwarizmi (Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī): a 9th-century Persian mathematician who introduced ideas of maths algorithms to western scholars. We get the word ‘algorithm’ from his name in Latin.
- Gladys West: used complicated algorithms to calculate the shape of the earth. Her work is key to how satellite GPS works today. Read more.
- Clarence ‘Skip’ Ellis: taught himself computing at age 15 and helped invent collaborative editing – the tech behind Google Docs. Read more.
- Hedy Lamarr: as well as being a glamorous Hollywood actress, Hedy invented ‘frequency hopping’ which is used to make WiFi work today. Read more.
- Louis Braille: Louis was blind from the age of 3. His invention, Braille, has enabled millions of blind people to read. It was the first practical use of binary to represent letters – binary representations underpin all modern computers today. Read more.
The posters are part of a growing collection of inclusive classroom resources for computing, available via Teaching London Computing. Find out about more of the work of computer scientists from diverse backgrounds through our diversity pages.
Educators can sign up for updates or get in touch with the CS4FN team at cs4fn@eecs.qmul.ac.uk.
The posters were funded by EPSRC on research agreement EP/W033615/1.