A viral marketing campaign to celebrate the work of women in science, engineering and technology sectors is working a treat. It's already passed its goal of getting a thousand people around the world to pledge to blog on a woman in the sector that they admire.

Ada Lovelace day is set for 24 March. It's the brainchild of British tech activist Suw * Charman-Anderson who began the campaign in October 2008.

She blogged in the Huffington Post on 15 January this year.

She said: "I will publish a blog post on Tuesday 24th March about a woman in technology whom I admire but only if 1,000 other people will do the same."

"Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. Women's contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised.

"We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines. Whatever she does, whether she is a sysadmin or a tech entrepreneur, a programmer or a designer, developing software or hardware, a tech journalist or a tech consultant, we want to celebrate her achievements.

The response around the world was immediate and substantial as the parade of comments on Twitter makes clear. And the pledge is now being picked up enthusiastically in New Zealand, local tech feminists say.

Ada Lovelace was one of the world's first computer programmers, and one of the first people to see computers as more than just a machine for doing sums.

She was the only legitimate child of the English poet Lord Bryon, who separated from her mother shortly after Ada's birth in 1816, (and died in 1824 fighting for the independence of Greece.

She married William King, who became the first Earl of Lovelace.

She was formidable mathematician and in 1842/3 she translated a paper by the Italian mathematician Luigi Menabrea on Babbage's proposed machine, the Analytical Engine.

Her Wikipedia entry says she added a set of notes detailing how to calculate Bernoulli numbers with the Engine.

This is recognised by historians as the world's first computer program. She died in 1852 aged 36. The computer language Ada, created by the U.S. Defense Department, was named after her.

Suw Charman-Anderson quotes psychological research that found women needed to see female role models more than men need to see male ones. So, " let's come together to highlight the women in technology that we look up to. Let's make sure that whenever the question "Who are the leading women in tech?" is asked, that we all have a list of candidates on the tips of our tongues."

If the day works she'll seek an annual international conference to promote the work of women in the sector.

(See http://www.pledgebank.com/AdaLovelaceDay)

Published in the National Business Review of 23 January 2009