Information Pioneers. I so want Hedy Lamarr to win.

When I was really quite young but already a great fan of pre 1960s cinema and a budding feminist, I learned that Hedy Lamarr said “Any girl can look glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.” It made me laugh out loud. Maybe that’s why I’ve voted for her.

Maybe it is just because I am fed up with the usual suspects getting all the credit.

Or maybe it is because Hedy Lamarr really did come up with a very savvy idea which, while ignored at the time by the powers that be, came back later to influence a number of key developments in IT.

Whatever the reason, I’ve voted for Hedy.

What? Where? Why? You ask.

I’ve voted for Hedy to win the British Computer Society’s Information Pioneers accolade, in a poll that launched today.

There is a shortlist of five:

Tim Berners-Lee Hedy Lamarr Ada Lovelace Clive Sinclair Alan Turing

Each candidate is introduced by a short film fronted by a ‘celebrity’. You’ll have to go to the Information Pioneers web site to watch the movies and see the shortlist of 150 from which the final five were drawn.

Hedy is currently leading with a massive 51.4 percent of the vote. But as I noted earlier the campaign only kicked off today so it is very early days. The Web site doesn’t have a clear indication of how long voting will last, which is a bit of information that it would be handy to have. If you are reading this, BCS, maybe you’d like to update the site?

You can follow the campaign on the Web or on Twitter as @infopioneers. I am sure info about the updated leader board will be posted regularly as well as the final result.