Nestor Burtnyk

Father of the multimillion-dollar computer animation industry, Burtnyk pioneered animation technology that transformed the field. Born in Ethelbert, Manitoba to Ukrainian immigrants, he began Canada's first major computer graphics research project in...

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...

Harlan B. Mills

Pioneer in automata theory and structured programming, Mills transformed software development through his advocacy of mathematical and statistical principles in software engineering. In 1969, Mills was asked to write a program creating...

Alan Jay Perlis

A pioneer in advanced programming techniques and compiler construction, Perlis was the first recipient of the ACM Turing Award in 1966, sometimes called the "Nobel Prize of Computing." Perlis was born on April...

Gladys West

Recognized for her contributions to mathematical modeling of the shape of the Earth, West was an African American mathematician whose work on satellite geodesy models was later incorporated into the Global Positioning...

Satya Nadella

Leader of a transformation of Microsoft's business and technology culture from client services to cloud infrastructure and services, Nadella was appointed CEO of Microsoft Corporation on February 4, 2014, succeeding Steve Ballmer,...

Raymond (Ray) F. Boyce

Co-developer of SQL, the first commercially successful language for relational databases, Boyce's work established the standard for relational database query languages still in use today. He was also known for his research...

Percy Edwin Ludgate

Designer of an Analytical Engine, Ludgate helped advance calculators by expanding Charles Babbage's design for the first programmable computer. An Irish accountant working alone in Dublin, he was unaware of Charles Babbage's...

Philip (Phil) R. Zimmermann, Jr.

The creator of Pretty Good Privacy (PGP), the most widely used email encryption software in the world, Zimmermann is also known for his work in VoIP encryption protocols, notably ZRTP and Zfone....

Raymond (Ray) John Noorda

Founder and former CEO of Novell, Noorda was a U.S. computer businessman who served in that role between 1982 and 1994. He also served as chairman of Novell until he was replaced...

Gabe Logan Newell

Producer of the first three releases of Windows, Newell later founded Valve, producing one of the best-selling PC games ever, Half-Life.

Ruzena Bajcsy

Founding director of the University of Pennsylvania's General Robotics and Active Sensory Perception (GRASP) Laboratory, Bajcsy is an American engineer and computer scientist specializing in robotics. She also served as head of...

Nicholas Constantine Metropolis

Leader of the group that designed and built the MANIAC I computer in 1952 and MANIAC II in 1957, Metropolis was a Greek American physicist born in Chicago and a graduate of...

Semen Nikolaevich Korsakov

Noted homeopath and early information technology inventor, Korsakov took part in the Napoleonic Wars with the Russian Army from 1812–1814. He later served as an official in the statistics department of the...

Tōru Iwatani

Creator of Pac-Man, one of the most popular arcade games of all time, Iwatani is a Japanese video game designer. He was born in the Meguro ward of Tokyo, Japan, and joined...

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...

Reynold (Ray) B. Johnson

Developer of the first manufactured hard disk drive, Johnson began his career as a teacher after graduating from the University of Minnesota in 1929, and invented an electronic test scoring machine, for...

Charles (Chuck) Harwood

CEO of Signetics, a Corning subsidiary and one of the largest integrated-circuit manufacturers in the world, Harwood led the company as sales grew from $35 million to $720 million during his tenure...

Robert Elliott Kahn

Co-inventor of the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP), Kahn is sometimes called one of the fathers of the Internet. Kahn was born on December 23, 1938, in Brooklyn, New...

Dave Boggs

Co-inventor of Ethernet and developer of early Internet protocol prototypes, Boggs helped shape the foundations of modern computer networking. David graduated from Princeton University, and as a young graduate worked at Xerox PARC,...