Ramon Verea

Inventor of the first calculating machine to use direct multiplication instead of employing multiple rounds of a crank, Verea was a Spanish inventor who studied in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and emigrated...

Peter Andreas Thiel

Co-founder of PayPal, Thiel is a German-born American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and hedge fund manager. He co-founded PayPal with Max Levchin, and later, Elon Musk, and has served as its CEO. He...

Reid Hoffman

Founder of LinkedIn, the world's largest professional network, Hoffman is sometimes called the "Oracle of Silicon Valley" for his track record of identifying transformative technology trends early. Hoffman was born on August 5,...

Jack Tramiel

Founder of Commodore International, Tramiel was a businessman best known for manufacturing the Commodore PET, Commodore 64, Commodore 128, Commodore Amiga, and other Commodore models of home computers. Born into a Jewish...

Annie Easley

A significant contributor to the early development of NASA's rocket technologies, Easley spent decades as a NASA engineer whose work in programming, energy-conversion, and shuttle launches helped address the agency's need for...

Yoelle Maarek

The first engineering hire of Google Israel, Maarek established the company's development center in Haifa in 2006 and led the team that launched Google Suggest worldwide on the Google homepage in 2008....

Alexander G. Fraser

Known for designing the Titan computer's file system and inventing cell-based networks that anticipated Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), Fraser made lasting contributions to computing and networking. From 1966-1969 he was Assistant Director...

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....

Daniel D. McCracken

Author of "A Guide to Fortran Programming" (Wiley, 1961) and its successors — the standard textbooks on that language for over two decades — McCracken was one of computing's most prolific educators....

Henry Ross Perot

Founder of Electronic Data Systems (EDS) in 1962, Perot built one of the most influential technology services companies in American history. He sold EDS to General Motors in 1984, and founded Perot...

Harry Lewis Nelson

Co-discoverer of the 27th Mersenne prime in 1979, which was at that time the largest known prime number, Nelson is also recognized as one of the world's foremost experts in writing optimized...

Douglas B. Lenat

Prominent in artificial intelligence and machine learning research, Lenat was best known for the Cyc project, an attempt to build the basis of a general artificial intelligence by manually representing knowledge in...

Victor Mayer Amédée Mannheim

Inventor of the modern slide rule, Mannheim standardized the design that remained in common use until pocket calculators took over. After graduating from the École d'Application in Metz, Mannheim became an officer of...

Herman Heine Goldstine

One of the original developers of the ENIAC, Goldstine left the University of Michigan, where he was a professor, in July 1942 to enlist in the Army after the United States entered...

Joseph Smagorinsky

Among the earliest researchers who sought to exploit new methods of numerical weather prediction to extend forecasting past one or two days, Smagorinsky was also the first Director of the National Oceanic...

Irwin Mark Jacobs

Pioneer of the OmniTRACS system, one of the world's most technologically advanced two-way mobile satellite communications and tracking systems, Jacobs is also co-founder and former Chairman of Qualcomm Incorporated, an American global...

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...

Edward M. Esber, Jr.

Credited with the successful marketing of the first productivity software for personal computing, Esber paved the way for the widespread acceptance of personal computers in business. He served as CEO of Ashton-Tate...

Tu Youyou

The first female citizen of the People's Republic of China to receive a Nobel Prize in any category, Tu Youyou was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with...

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...