John David McAfee

Writer of the first commercial anti-virus software in 1987, McAfee founded McAfee Associates to sell his creation. McAfee became the company's most vocal critic in later years, urging consumers to uninstall the company's...

Andrew James Viterbi

Inventor of the Viterbi algorithm, used for decoding convolutionally encoded data and still widely used in cellular phones for error correcting codes, as well as for speech recognition, DNA analysis, and many...

Eugene Wong

Instrumental in building an Internet backbone for Asia and a pioneering contributor to relational database management, Wong has also inaugurated major initiatives in microsystems, information technology, nanotechnology, service-sector engineering, and biotechnology. Wong received...

William (Danny) Daniel Hillis

Co-founder of Thinking Machines Corporation, Hillis developed the Connection Machine, a parallel supercomputer he designed at MIT. He also co-founded the Long Now Foundation, Applied Minds, and Metaweb, and authored The Pattern...

Federico Faggin

Co-designer of the world's first microprocessor, Faggin is recognized as a foundational figure in modern computing. After obtaining his university degree, he worked at SGS Fairchild in Italy, where he developed SGS's...

Donald Valentine

Referred to as the "grandfather of Silicon Valley venture capital," Valentine was an American venture capitalist who concentrated mainly on technology companies in the United States. Valentine grew up in the Bronx,...

David Yang

Founder and chairman of ABBYY, Yang was born in 1968 in Yerevan, Armenian SSR, to a Chinese father and Armenian mother, both physicists. He spent his first 17 years in Armenia before...

T. Capers Jones

Associated with the function point model of cost estimation, Jones is a specialist in software engineering methodologies. He has also collected data on software quality, software risks, and software best practices. He...

Einar (Stef) A. Stefferud

One of the original designers of the MIME protocol for sending multimedia Internet electronic mail, Stefferud made many significant contributions to the development of the Internet, particularly in the areas of IETF...

Garth Gibson

Co-developer of the RAID taxonomy of redundant data storage systems, Gibson is a Computer Scientist from Carnegie Mellon University, born in Aurora, Ontario. He holds a Ph.D. and an MSc in Computer...

Pieter Van den Abeele

Founder of the PowerPC version of Gentoo Linux, Van den Abeele spearheaded the Gentoo architectures and platforms effort together with Daniel Robbins. He received a scholarship from Apple Computer for founding Gentoo...

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...

Heinz Nixdorf

German computer entrepreneur, Nixdorf founded and led Nixdorf Computer AG. He developed and marketed low-end commercial computers mainly within Europe between 1965 and 1985. He had production facilities in Germany, Ireland, Spain,...

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...

Herbert Freeman

Contributor to the field of automatic label placement, computer graphics, and machine vision, Freeman published numerous works on geometric patterns from '61 and co-founded, with Azriel Rosenfeld of the University of Maryland,...

Aart J. de Geus

One of the world's leading experts on logic synthesis and simulation, de Geus is the founder, Chairman and CEO of Synopsys Inc., a fellow of IEEE, and Phil Kaufman Award winner. He...

Judith (Judy) L. Estrin

Leader of the team that developed one of the first commercial local area network systems, Z-net, Estrin is an American business executive and technology entrepreneur who co-founded seven companies with Bill Carrico. She...

Pierre Morad Omidyar

Founder and chairman of eBay, Omidyar is a French-born Armenian-Iranian entrepreneur, philanthropist, and economist. Omidyar and his wife Pam are well-known philanthropists who founded Omidyar Network in 2004 in order to expand...

Gideon Gartner

Founder of Gartner Group (now Gartner, Inc.), Gartner built one of the most influential IT research and advisory firms in the world. IT "advisory" firms are distinct from consultancies, in that they provide...

Angel Angelov

Founder of the Institute of Engineering Cybernetics and Robotics in Bulgaria, Angelov is recognized for pioneering computer science applications to particle accelerators and broader industrial control systems. Microprocessor-based control and pattern recognition...