Mother’s Day 2023: Five tech terms that show moms are at the heart of it all

Mothers – life is literally and figuratively impossible without them.

Misplaced your favourite pair of socks? Mom knows where to find them. Need help with your homework? Mom has the answers. Juggling a career and domestic management? That’s mom too.

Little wonder then that quite a few essential tech items and concepts are named after mothers. Don’t believe us? Then read on to learn more about how integral moms are in the world of tech.

Motherboard aka motherchip aka the mothership of chips

If you have ever looked inside a desktop computer, you know what a motherboard looks like. It’s that flat board with all manners of circuits, wires, and components plugged into it.

Yes, the motherboard of a computer literally holds everything together and ensures all the disparate parts work in tandem to provide a computing experience. The graphic card, RAM, hard drive, CD drive, processor chip, power supply – you name it. All of them run through the motherboard in one way or another.

On top of that, modern motherboards today usually come with built-in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Ethernet connectivity, eliminating the need for separate network cards.

And it’s not just the clunky desktops that have a motherboard. Laptops and yes, the mobile devices that you’re so glued to, have motherboards too.

When you think about how moms are usually at the centre of family life while often holding down a job to boot, you see how the motherboard is probably the only name that can live up to the importance of this fundamental piece of hardware.

Mother of all apps – an app with a slash career

Slash careers have been all the rage in recent years. We’re referring to those “person of many positions” descriptions in Twitter and LinkedIn bios. And when we think about it, mothers shouldn’t bat an eyelid, calling themselves expert multi-taskers/entrepreneurs/counsellors/career women/chief financial officers/lead singers in a homegrown band.

And that’s why an app that aspires to be everything to everyone is sometimes referred to as the mother-of-all-apps. You know, it's kind of like how it’s not enough to provide ride-hailing; you’ve got to get into food delivery, personal finance, payment services, and even groceries.

The government also has a super app of sorts, the LifeSG app, which consolidates many government services into a one-stop shop and curates them into services for major milestones or for everyday life.

Fun fact: the term “mother-of-all-apps” was even used in Parliament in 2017 by Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister-in-Charge of the Smart Nation Initiative, when he was describing how the authorities should be open to collaboration with the private sector to provide digital government services.

“For government apps, I take the point that we want platform unification. But I’m not sure we need everyone to use the mother of all apps. In fact, I have told government departments that if someone else from the private sector comes up with a better and more effective app that makes government services available, we should encourage that. We should not allow the government to have a monopoly on app production to access government services,” he said.

Mother lode – all you need to know

At the peak of excitement over the potential of big data, the phrase “data is the new oil” was bandied about a lot. It was an apt phrase in more ways than one as a large, rich source of data came to be known as the motherlode, a term that originates from the mining of physical resources such as mineral ore and, yes, oil.

As big data gets bigger and bigger, the term motherlode has also been  increasingly used. This year, the UK Navy announced a joint initiative with Microsoft to greatly enhance the efficiency of aircraft maintenance by exploiting data.

The name of the programme? You guessed it – Motherlode.

Mother folder

The far more common term is ‘parent folder’, but ‘mother folder’ has been used to refer to a top-level folder within a file hierarchy. A mother folder is hence, a folder that contains other folders or files within this.

Does that make sense? We think it certainly does. Many mothers, at some point do carry smaller versions of themselves within their bodies.

…On the other hand, we’re struggling to see the term ’father folder’ being used organically.

Big Mother is watching you

And finally, a term that has to do with the actual mothering of children.

Technology has enabled all manners of surveillance. And given how an inescapable part of parenting is watching the kids, parents have been turning to things like CCTVs in bedrooms, geolocation of devices (be it a child’s smartphone or an Air Tag slipped into his backpack), as well as software enabling them to monitor a child’s online activity.

Welcome to the tech of Big Mother – a play on the term Big Brother from George Orwell’s dystopian classic 1984.

It’s a tough balance between keeping the kids safe and respecting their privacy. But with the technology out there, it will inevitably be a balance that all parents will struggle with one way or another.

And of course, the idea of a watchful eye over everything just has to be associated with mothers. Big Father just doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

Centre of the universe

So there you have it. Proof that mothers are so important that tech has a special place for them.

So the next time you pull out your phone (ha, you’re probably reading this on your phone right now), know that you’re carrying a motherboard in your hands and text or call to send her some love.

Better yet, give a big hug to the true motherboard of your home – mom – when you see her!

Happy Mother’s Day!