Mr. André Trương Trọng Thi

A Vietnamese-French engineer, he is considered to be the "father of the personal computer". In 1973, two years before the debut of the famed Altair, his two-year-old company, R2E, created the Micral microcomputer based on an Intel 8008 processor - the genetic ancestor from which all PC generations have followed. He was born in 1936 in Cholon (Saigon) and when he was 14 years old, he arrived in France to study, and later studied at the ?cole Fran?aise de Radio?lectricit? (now EFREI). After working for Schlumberger and Intertechnique for some time, he formed the company R2E (R?alisation d'?tudes ?lectroniques) in 1971. In 1973, thanks to Fran?ois Gernelle and a team of engineers, his company created the Micral, the first non-kit, microprocessor based personal computer in the world. It was created two years before the MITS Altair of Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems arrived on the market. In 1981, R2E was absorbed by Groupe Bull. The Micral computers were turned into a line of PC-compatibles in 1983. Andr? Truong Trong Thi resigned from Bull, and joined the company Normerel formed by J. R. Tissot, a former member of R2E management. He developed the Oplite personal computer for Normerel. In 1988 Normerel was the third French computer maker after Groupe Bull and SMT Goupil. In 1995, he formed the France-based Advanced PC Technologies (APCT), a software company specializing in cryptography. This company spawned another paradigm-breaking variation by creating the first network PC - the NPC 97. In 1988, he was awarded the French government's Technical Education Gold Medal for bringing PC technology into French schools, and in 1999, he was awarded the L?gion d'honneur.