As today is International Women’s Day, we thought we’d give a shout out to the absolute pioneer in mathematics Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, better known by the name Ada Lovelace.

Born in 1815 to the iconic rake of Regency London - Lord Byron and reformer Anne Milbanke, Ada showed a keen in interest in logic and maths from a young age. Her mother was supportive of these passions and urged her to explore them, mainly due to a concern that she would end up ‘insane’ like her estranged Father who had left them behind when she was only a month old.

The Enchantress of Numbers

At the age of eighteen, thanks to her obvious talents and interests, Ada was brought into contact with Charles Babbage (also known as the Father of Computing). This meeting happened at one of his Saturday Night Soirees and would possibly have never occurred if not for Ada’s private tutor - scientist, polymath and writer Mary Somerville. A peculiar character herself, Ada felt that she needed someone equally as open-minded to teach her successfully and their working-relationship and friendship blossomed quickly. Later that month Babbage invited her to see the prototype for his difference engine (a mechanical computer), which she immediately became fascinated with. Inspired by her new teacher, Ada used her relationship with Somerville to her advantage and visited Babbage as often as she could. Incredibly impressed by her analytic skills and intellectual ability, he christened her ‘The Enchantress of Numbers,’ a nickname which has stood the test of time.

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It’s been just under a year since we launched Raiven, but we’ve taken the brave decision to refresh our brand and launch a shiny new website. Why? That’s what I’m here to tell you.

2023 was a year full of surprises and new opportunities that we couldn’t have predicted, and ultimately as much as we love our little node raven, it wasn’t ready to grow with our ambitions. We took the opportunity of a new year to address this, working with a team of brand experts to help us build a sleek, cool, and scalable new Raiven that we’re excited to share with you. But what are these surprises and opportunities I alluded to? Well, I’ll dig into those below.

Team Growth
2024 also brings 2 new team members to the Raiven flock. We welcomed experienced Data Scientists, Adam Miller and Jack Healings, to the company at the start of February; to develop our offers in Edge AI and Natural Language Processing. They add to our existing team knowledge and are keen to progress our goal of making Responsible AI accessible and valuable to businesses.

Accelerating into Deep Tech
With a new year comes a new home, and we’ve had the exciting opportunity to join the Ignite Deep Tech incubator. The scheme is part of the University of Warwick Science Park, and has allowed us to set up nest in Warwick Innovation Centre. We’re delighted to get on board with a scheme that matches our ambitions to make innovation understandable and achievable for industry; and puts the power of years of experience in Deep Tech growth at our fingertips. We’ve already met with several pioneering alumni, as well as other members of the current cohort, and are keen to dig deeper in the coming months.