Konrad Zuse

German engineer who, completely independently of British and American computing efforts, built the Z3 (1941), the first working program-controlled general-purpose digital computer. The Z3, destroyed in the bombing of Berlin, never got...

Rudolf Hell

Inventor of the Hellschreiber, an early forerunner to the fax machine, Hell was a German engineer born in Eggmühl, Germany, who studied electrical engineering in Munich from 1919 to 1923. While there...

Terry G. Johnson

Founder of Miniscribe in 1980, an early manufacturer of 5.25-inch and later 3.5-inch drives, Johnson was a pioneer in disk storage products. Born in Ogden, Utah, Johnson graduated from high school in 1953....

Peter R. Jennings

Author of the first commercially successful chess program for microcomputers, Jennings is a Canadian physicist, interdisciplinary scientist, inventor, software developer, computer chess programmer, businessman, and paraglider. Born in England, his family moved...

Grady Booch

Developer of the Unified Modeling Language, Booch got his first programming experience on a Fortran IV while in high school. Graduating from military academy in 1977, he worked as a software project...

Dan Fylstra

Founding Associate Editor of BYTE Magazine and co-developer and marketer of VisiCalc, the original spreadsheet program, Fylstra has been a pioneer of the computer industry since the 1970s. In 1978 he co-founded...

Seymour Roger Cray

Sometimes called "the father of supercomputing," Cray was a U.S. electrical engineer and supercomputer architect who designed a series of computers that were the fastest in the world for decades, and founded...

Steven (Steve) Gibson

Creator of one of the first adware removal programs, OptOut, Gibson is an American software engineer and security researcher. Born in Dayton, Ohio, he began working on computers as a teenager, and...

Lionel Kattner

Contributor to the development of the first planar integrated circuit and co-founder of Signetics Corporation, Kattner is recognized as a key figure in early semiconductor history. A graduate of Southwestern University in...

Jean David Ichbiah

Chief designer of the Ada programming language, Ichbiah was a French-born computer scientist who led the design of Ada (from 1977–1983), a general-purpose, strongly typed programming language with certified validated compilers. At...

Samuel (Sam) Wyly

Co-founder of several computer businesses, including Datran, which began construction of a nationwide system of microwave towers to transmit data among 27 American cities, Wyly is an American entrepreneur, businessman, and philanthropist....

Adam Osborne

Creator of the first commercially successful portable computer, Osborne transformed personal computing in the early 1980s. Adam Osborne was born in Thailand in 1939 to British parents and spent much of his childhood...

Gayatri Buragohain

Founder of Feminist Approach to Technology (FAT), an organization empowering women in India to learn, use, and create technology, Buragohain has worked to break the stereotype that women cannot be adept at...

Evan Sharp

Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of Pinterest, Sharp designed the Pinterest grid for the initial product launch. Pinterest is a visual bookmarking tool that skyrocketed in popularity due to its innovative concept...

Robert Cecil Martin

Initiator of the 2001 meeting that created Agile software development from Extreme Programming techniques, Martin has been a software professional since 1970 and has served as an international software consultant from 1990....

Sam Harrell

Co-founder of SEMATECH, the partnership between the U.S. government and U.S.-based semiconductor manufacturers to regain competitiveness for the U.S. semiconductor industry, Harrell is a leading specialist in semiconductor and international trade and...

Robert (Bob) C. Baron

Program Manager for the Mariner II (Venus) and the Mariner IV (Mars) onboard space computers, Baron spent over 25 years as an engineer, entrepreneur, and executive in the computer industry. A historian,...

John W. Brackett

Co-founder of SofTech, a Boston-based software company, Brackett managed the company's software development projects for large commercial and government clients as Vice President of Software Production. Brackett received his B.S. degree from MIT...

B. (Bob) Ramakrishna Rau

Developer of the Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) technology that is now standard in modern computer processors, Rau was widely recognized as an expert in VLIW computing, which is the basis of...

William (Bill) John Poduska, Sr.

Founder of Apollo Computer, one of the first creators of graphical workstations in the 1980s, Poduska is an American engineer, entrepreneur, and independent business consultant. Born in Memphis, Tennessee, he graduated from...