Jean Amédée Hoerni

Developer of the planar process, the manufacturing process by which modern integrated circuits are built, Hoerni was a silicon transistor pioneer and a member of the Traitorous Eight. Hoerni was born in...

Allessandro Volta

Inventor of the battery in 1800 and a remotely operated pistol that was a significant forerunner of the telegraph, Volta transformed the understanding of electricity. He was born in Como, Italy, and taught...

Karen Banks

Inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame in 2013 as a "Global Connector," Banks is a British computer networking pioneer recognized for expanding internet access to underserved communities worldwide. In the 1990s,...

David J. Kuck

Developer of the Parafrase compiler system (1977), the first testbed for automatic vectorization and related program transformations, Kuck is one of the most influential figures in parallel computing. His influence spans a...

Alvy Ray Smith, III

Co-founder of the animation studio Pixar and creator of the HSV color space, Smith is an American engineer and noted pioneer in computer graphics. In 1965, he received his Bachelor's Degree in...

Edwin Earl Catmull

A pioneer of computer graphics and former President of both Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Animation Studios, Catmull has contributed to many important developments in computer graphics. He was born in...

Charles Ranlett Flint

Founder of the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR), which later became IBM, Flint transformed the landscape of business computing. In 1868, Charles Flint graduated from the Polytechnic Institute in Brooklyn, and in 1871 entered the...

Francis (Fran) O. Underwood

Chief Architect of the IBM 1401, known as the SPACE Machine, Underwood was an engineer, machine designer, and engineering trainer for IBM. Born in Omaha, NE, he came from a line of...

Paul Tseng

The first to establish the convergence of the affine scaling algorithm for linear programming in the presence of degeneracy, Tseng was recognized by his peers to be one of the leading optimization...

Patrick Joseph McGovern

Founder of Computerworld and the International Data Group (IDG), McGovern built one of the world's largest technology media companies, with subsidiaries in technology publishing, research, event management, and venture capital. McGovern was born...

Geoffrey William Arnold Dummer

The first person to conceptualize and build a prototype of the integrated circuit, commonly called the microchip, Dummer made this pioneering contribution in the late 1940s and early 1950s. He passed the...

Paul Baran

Co-inventor of packet-switched networks, Baran transformed the foundations of modern digital communications. He was born in Grodno (then Poland) and his family moved to Philadelphia in 1928. Baran did undergraduate work at...

Charles M. Sporck

Former CEO of National Semiconductor, Sporck led one of the most influential semiconductor companies of its era.

Maurice Vincent Wilkes

Designer and builder of EDSAC, the first fully productive stored-program electronic computer, Wilkes transformed the foundations of modern computing. Wilkes designed and constructed EDSAC at Cambridge University as the first fully productive stored-program...

Ronald (Ron) Lewis Graham

Credited by the American Mathematical Society as "one of the principal architects of the rapid development worldwide of discrete mathematics in recent years," Graham was also a leading figure in scheduling theory,...

Alexander (Sandy) Shafto Douglas

Creator of the first graphic computer game, Douglas made important contributions in mathematical computing, computer education, and man-machine interfaces. 'Sandy' Douglas worked on EDSAC and later the Ferranti Pegasus. As a graduate student...

Michael Saul Dell

Founder and CEO of Dell Inc., Dell is an American business magnate who has been among the richest people in the world, with a net worth of US$13.5 billion in 2010.

Daniel Meyer

Founder of Southwest Technical Products Corporation (SWTPC), Meyer introduced kits for the AC-30 Cassette Interface data storage and the PR-40 printer. He was born in New Braunfels, Texas and raised in San...

Daniel E. Cooke

Inventor of the SequenceL functional programming language, Cooke discovered the computational laws that led to its creation and implemented several early interpreters for the language. During his tenure at Texas Tech University,...

Paul A. Vixie

Author of the standard UNIX system programs SENDS, proxynet, rtty, and Vixie cron, Vixie is an American Internet pioneer and well-known Unix software author who attended George Washington High School in San...