Konnie Huq on Ada Lovelace

From Banking, to air traffic control systems and to controlling the United States defence department, there's a computer language called 'Ada'.

It's named after Ada Lovelace – a 19th century mathematician and daughter of Lord Byron and now championed as a Great Life.

She's been called many things.

But perhaps most poetically by Charles Babbage - whom she worked with on a steam-driven calculating machine called the Difference Engine - an 'enchantress of numbers'. Lord Byron called her similarly mathematical mother a "princess of parallelograms".

Augusta 'Ada' Byron was born in 1815 but her parents marriage was short and unhappy. They separated when Ada was one month old and she never saw her father, who died when was eight years old.

Her mother, Annabella concerned Ada might inherit Byron's "poetic tendencies" had her schooled her in maths and science to try to combat any madness inherited from her father.

She's championed by TV presenter and writer – Konnie Huq, most well known for presenting the BBC TV's children's programme - 'Blue Peter'.

Together with expert– Suw Charman- Anderson, a Social technologist, they lift the lid on the life of this mathematician, now regarded as the first computer programmer.

Presented by Matthew Parris.

Producer: Perminder Khatkar

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2013.