Raymond (Ray) Kurzweil

Inventor and developer of Optical Character Recognition (OCR), Text-To-Speech Synthesis, Speech Recognition technology, and electronic keyboard instruments, Kurzweil is an American author, inventor, and futurist. He grew up in the New York...

Elaine Surick Oran

Considered a world authority on numerical methods for large-scale simulation of physical systems, Oran pioneered computational technology to solve complex reactive flow problems. Her work unified concepts from science, mathematics, engineering, and...

Robert (Bob) M. Frankston

Co-creator of VisiCalc and co-founder of Software Arts, Frankston received numerous honors and awards for his work. He has been named a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery (1994) "for the...

William (Bill) Nelson Joy

Founder and Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems, Joy co-founded the company in 1982 along with Vinod Khosla, Scott McNealy, Andy Bechtolsheim and Vaughan Pratt, and has served as chief scientist there until...

Christopher Strachey

One of the founders of denotational semantics and a pioneer in programming language design, Strachey made lasting contributions to computer science. After the war he fulfilled a long-standing ambition by becoming a schoolmaster...

Klára (Klari) Dán Von Neumann

Writer of the code used on the MANIAC machine developed by John Von Neumann and Julian Bigelow at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Klára Dán Von Neumann was also a pioneer computer...

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...

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...

Dinesh Verma

Leader of an international team of 22 research organizations selected to form the International Technology Alliance in Network Sciences, Verma is an IBM Fellow, researcher, and Department Group Manager at the IBM...

Ahti Heinla

Co-developer of Skype, Heinla is an Estonian programmer and entrepreneur who served as Lead Architect on the project alongside Priit Kasesalu and Jaan Tallinn. They had also originally developed Kazaa, which started...

Neil Bartlett

Key contributor to IBM's risk analytics business, Bartlett has served as an IBM Fellow, Chief Technology Officer, and Head of Development for the Risk Analytics division of IBM. His innovative work in...

Frederick (Fred) Jacob Damerau

Pioneer in natural language processing and data mining, Damerau spent over four decades at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown, New York. Born in Parma, Ohio, son of the...

Andrew (Tridge) Tridgell

Co-inventor of the rsync algorithm, a highly efficient file transfer and synchronization tool, Tridgell is also best known as the author of and contributor to the Samba file server. He is recognized...

Cesar A. Gonzales

Co-inventor of patented still-frame and motion video compression techniques that IBM contributed to the JPEG and MPEG international standards, Gonzales played a central role in bringing about the worldwide leap into digital...

Anne-Marie Kermarrec

Founder of Mediego, a startup focused on real-time online content personalization, Kermarrec was a French computer scientist and professor at EPFL in Switzerland. There she headed the Scalable Computing Systems Laboratory in...

Dorcas Muthoni

Founder of OPENWORLD LTD at the age of 24, Muthoni was a Kenyan entrepreneur and computer scientist who established the software consulting company to advance technology's role in African society. Through her...

Valerie Barr

Researcher in software testing, gender and science issues, and computer science curriculum development, Barr has served as Professor and Chair of Computer Science at Union College, Schenectady, New York, since September 2004....

Joseph (Joe) A. Piscopo

Founder of Pansophic Systems in 1969, Piscopo built the Lisle, Illinois software firm into a major enterprise before retiring as its Chairman and C.E.O. in 1987 after 18 years. Previously, he had...

Francine Berman

A pioneer in grid computing, Berman is one of the two founding Principal Investigators of the National Science Foundation's TeraGrid project. She also directed the National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (NPACI),...

Shikoh Gitau

The first African to win the Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship, Gitau received that honor at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, recognized for her inventions and thesis work. A Kenyan...