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...

Steve McConnell Case

Co-founder and former chief executive officer and chairman of America Online (AOL), Case is an American businessman who reached his highest profile when he played an instrumental role in AOL's merger with...

Heinz G. Schwaertzel

Head of Central Research at Siemens AG in Munich, Schwaertzel has served as President of Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI) from 1987–1991. He initiated DFKI (German Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence) in Saarbrücken...

Mary Lou Jepsen

Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of One Laptop per Child, Jepsen helped shape one of the most recognized nonprofit computing initiatives of its era. She also served as Chief Architect of that...

Dimitri P. Bertsekas

Known for his fourteen textbooks and monographs in theoretical and algorithmic optimization and control, and in applied probability, Bertsekas is an applied mathematician and computer scientist who has served as a professor...

Icer Addis

Author of the NESticle, Genecyst, and Callus emulators, Addis is considered a legendary figure in the emulation scene. He co-founded Bloodlust Software with his friend Ethan Petty. Working independently under the Bloodlust...

John Cullinane

Founder of Cullinet, one of the first software companies to go public, Cullinane is recognized as the creator of the packaged software market. His company claimed many industry firsts: first packaged application, first...

Alan F. Shugart

A pioneer in managing programs and companies in the disk drive industry, Shugart made lasting contributions to the field over several decades. Al Shugart started at IBM in 1951 and over 18 years...

Nick D'Aloisio

Designer of Summly — a program aimed to solve perceived problems with the way news articles are presented on smartphones — D'Aloisio is a British-Australian entrepreneur, computer programmer, and designer who created...

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...

Jefferson (Jeff) Y. Han

Co-developer of "multi-touch sensing," Han is a research scientist at NYU's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences who helped create touch-screen interfaces able to recognize multiple points of contact. He also worked on...

Jennifer Pahlka

Founder of Code for America and a key figure in bringing civic technology to the forefront of American public policy, Pahlka served as U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer from June 2013 to...

Patrick Volkerding

Founder and maintainer of the Slackware Linux distribution, Volkerding has served as Slackware's "Benevolent Dictator for Life" (BDFL), and is also known informally as "The Man". He has also contributed to the...

Biz Stone

Co-founder of Twitter, Stone also served as its Creative Director and helped to create and launch Xanga, Blogger, Odeo, and Obvious. Stone published two books about blogging, including *Blogging: Genius Strategies for...

Abraham (Abe) Peled

Innovator of the first Internet ISP and e-commerce sites in Israel, Peled is an Israeli businessman born in Romania with over 40 years of accomplishments in the digital TV industry. He graduated...

William (Bill) L. Schrader

Co-founder of the world's first commercial Internet Service Provider, Schrader partnered with Martin L. Schoffstall to launch PSINet in 1989, initially funding the company using credit cards and by selling his family...

Jeffrey (Jeff) Hawkins

Founder of Palm Computing and Handspring, Hawkins invented the Palm Pilot and the Treo. He subsequently turned to neuroscience full-time, founding the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience (formerly the Redwood Neuroscience Institute)...

Nils John Nilsson

One of the founding researchers in the discipline of Artificial Intelligence, Nilsson was particularly famous for his contributions to search, planning, knowledge representation, and robotics. He was the first Kumagai Professor of...

Paul Vincent Galvin

Co-founder of Motorola, Galvin helped establish one of the world's leading telecommunications companies. Founded as Galvin Manufacturing Corporation on September 25, 1928, Motorola became a leader in communications equipment. Galvin was born...

Milo S. Medin

Helping to deliver the first large-scale residential broadband access service in partnership with major cable operators, Medin has been part of the Internet development community for more than 25 years. He has...