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Grace was born on 9 December 1906 in New York. From an early age, she showed a great aptitude for science and mathematics, which was partly influenced by her family's military and scientific tradition. With the support of her parents and grandfather, who believed in equal education for men and women, Grace immersed herself completely in the world of technology, even taking apart the clocks in her house at the age of 7 to understand how they worked.
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When she turned 18, she began studying mathematics at Yale. However, she never practised as a mathematician because, with the outbreak of the Second World War, Grace decided to join the armed forces and was sent to Harvard University to complete her studies in engineering and applied physics.
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In Howard H. Aiken began her career in computing in 1944, soon becoming the first woman and the first third person to programme the Mark I computer.
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With the end of the war, Grace continued her work at Harvard, developing accounting applications for the Mark I. In 1949, she took her expertise to Eckert-Mauchly Corporation in Philadelphia, where she contributed to the development of the UNIVAC I, combining this position with that of director of automatic programming development.
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The UNIVAC I, launched in 1950, was recognised as the first large computer and surpassed the Mark I in terms of information processing efficiency.
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Just two years after her initiative, the committee that would design the innovative programming language was formed. And although Grace did not play a central role in the development of COBOL, she was a member of the original committee and her work significantly influenced the final design, ultimately being recognised as its creator.