Jaron Zepel Lanier

Pioneer of virtual reality, Lanier led the team in the late 1980s that developed the first implementations of multi-person virtual worlds using head-mounted displays. In mid-1997, he became a founding member of...

John Russell Patrick

An influential force behind IBM's early adoption of the Internet and World Wide Web, Patrick led the team that created IBM's intranet and the IBM.com website. He was born in Salem, New...

Steven (Steve) N. Goldstein

Co-creator of GLORIAD, a dedicated-wavelength ring around the globe to support computationally-intensive research, Goldstein served as an International Networking Coordinator at the National Science Foundation from 1989 to 2003, functioning as a...

Elon James Gasper

Holder of several patents relating to Lip Sync and other technology, Gasper is a former Senior VP at VizX Labs and co-founder of 1980s-era software company Bright Star Technology. Described by Ken...

Nancy Hafkin

A pioneer of networking and electronic communications in Africa, Hafkin spearheaded the Pan African Development Information System (PADIS) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) from 1987 until 1997. She...

Richard Matthew Stallman

Founder of the GNU Project to create a free Unix-like operating system, Stallman also launched the free software movement and was the main author of the GNU General Public License for open...

Peter G. Neumann

A leading specialist in computer security best known for the Provably Secure Operating System (PSOS), Neumann has also served as moderator of the RISKS Digest and founding editor of ACM Software Engineering...

Fei-Fei Li

Best known for establishing ImageNet, the dataset that enabled rapid advances in computer vision in the 2010s, Li is a professor of computer science at Stanford University whose research spans artificial intelligence,...

Joy Buolamwini

Founder of the Algorithmic Justice League (AJL), Buolamwini founded an organization dedicated to challenging bias in decision-making software through art, advocacy, and research. Her work highlighted the social implications and harms of...

Martha Lane Fox

Co-founder of Lastminute.com and the British Government's first Champion for Digital Inclusion, Lane Fox studied ancient and modern history at Magdalen College, Oxford, having previously attended Oxford High School and Westminster School....

Joseph Weizenbaum

Creator of ELIZA, the pioneering natural language processing program that prompted his growing skepticism about artificial intelligence, Weizenbaum died March 5, 2008 in Berlin. He was 85. Joseph Weizenbaum was born on January...

Willis H. Ware

Designer of the IAS and Johnniac computers, Ware was a senior computer scientist emeritus with the RAND Corporation (1952–present) in Santa Monica, California, with which he held various staff and management positions....

Toru Takahashi

Writer of the first Japanese book on the Internet, Takahashi is sometimes known as the "Mother of the Internet" in Japan. He was instrumental in bringing the Internet to Japan and promoting...

Michael S. Tomczyk

Best known for his role in the development and marketing of the Commodore VIC-20, the first microcomputer to sell one million units, Tomczyk is also recognized as an early pioneer in telecomputing....

Donn B. Parker

A 2008 Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, Parker was a leading information security researcher and consultant. He received many awards in the information security field. He lectured at conferences, seminars,...

Jakob Nielsen

Founder of the "discount usability engineering" movement for fast and cheap improvements of user interfaces, Nielsen invented several usability methods, including heuristic evaluation — a usability inspection method for computer software that...

Karen Banks

Inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2013 as a "Global Connector," Banks is a British computer networking pioneer recognized for expanding internet access to underserved communities worldwide. In the 1990s,...

Anita Borg

Developer of a patented method for generating complete address traces for analyzing and designing high-speed memory systems, and of MECCA, an email and Web-based system for communicating in virtual communities, Borg was...

Jesse James Garrett

Publisher of the diagram "The Elements of User Experience," a foundational model of user-centered design, Garrett is a user experience designer and co-founder of Adaptive Path, a user experience strategy and design...

Mochio Umeda

One of the most well-known commentators on IT and Web 2.0 issues in Japan, Umeda is also the author of the best-selling book "Web Shinkaron (Theory of Web Evolution)." He is a...