The Information Technology Girl with Ann Moffatt, Founder of FitT

I’ve worked in the Information Technology industry since 1959. From the first days I’ve loved every bit of it. Yes, there have been a few days I could have done without but overall I’ve been paid handsomely to have tremendous fun. It's enabled me to successfully raise 2 wonderful children and to indulge my passion for travel.

When I first came into the IT industry there were only about 300 computers in the world.

There are now many billions.

In this e-Workshop I will share what I and many other women have learned while working in our exciting and fast changing profession and we'll have some question time to answer any questions or learnings you've had for yourself or other women.

About Ann Moffatt

After a 50-plus year career in technology, Ann Moffatt is a living legend of the Australian industry.

Forging an exciting career as a woman ahead of her time and a leader in her field, she started her career in IT in 1959 as a programmer for Kodak, the only woman in the organisation.

In the 1960s while working with the FI Group in the UK she pioneered the concept of teleworking. In the photo she is working from her lounge room table with her daughter at her side as she writes programs to analyse the supersonic Concorde jet’s black box recorder. By the time she left the company she was in charge of 400 professional staff – all working from home.

Founding FitT

Ann came to Australia in 1974, recruited to fix some problems on an ambitious network computer at the AMP financial services group. Intending to stay for just a couple of years, she has been in Australia ever since.

Having held senior tech positions across a variety of large organisations including ASX – she was often approached by women regularly, who sought advice. That led to the creation of Females in Information Technology and Telecommunications in 1990, so that women would have a place to talk to each other.

“It wasn’t going to be a hierarchy like the computer society. We weren’t going to have chairmen and committees and things like that. It was going to be a network – a network of women helping women.”

Ann is a pioneer, both as a technologist and as a woman pushing ahead in an industry that became increasingly dominated by men the further into it she progressed. Ann is a true trailblazer and the first woman inducted into the Australian ICT Hall of Fame in 2002.

She has just published a memoir, ‘The IT Girl – 50 years as a woman working in the information technology sector’. It has been a wild ride, and a life well-lived and Ann Moffatt has stories to tell.