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...

Stephanie L. Kwolek

Inventor of Kevlar (poly-paraphenylene terephthalamide), Kwolek was an American chemist whose career at DuPont spanned more than 40 years. Her discovery earned her the DuPont Lavoisier Medal for outstanding technical achievement, and...

Henry (Hank) Wallman

Co-builder of the Electronic Differential Analyser, an early example of an analog computer, Wallman also performed pioneering research in biomedical engineering combining video displays with X-ray imaging. An American mathematician known for...

Randy Cartwright

Creator of Animation Timer, a stopwatch application for Apple iPhones, Cartwright is a veteran Disney animator and filmmaker. Born in Virginia, Cartwright graduated from UCLA in 1974, where he made his student animated...

George Winthrop Fairchild

Chairman of IBM from its founding through 1924, Fairchild was a pivotal figure in the early history of the company. Primarily self-educated, he rose to prominence through his own effort and enterprise....

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...

Burton (Burt) Grad

Founder of the Software History Center, Grad has been working on computer software since 1954, when he wrote the first production and inventory control programs for the General Electric Company's installation of...

Paul J. Severino

Designer of interface boards for the PDP-11 at Digital Equipment Corporation, Severino began his career there after receiving his B.S.E.E. in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1969, subsequently serving as...

Pierre Morad Omidyar

Founder and chairman of eBay, Omidyar is a French-born Armenian-Iranian entrepreneur, philanthropist, and economist. Omidyar and his wife Pam are well-known philanthropists who founded Omidyar Network in 2004 in order to expand...

Marvin Lee Minsky

Co-founder of MIT's AI laboratory and a towering figure in artificial intelligence, Minsky was an American cognitive scientist and author of several texts on AI and philosophy.

John (Jack) Sebastian Frey

Contributor to IBM's successful defense against antitrust actions in the United States and Europe, Frey built a distinguished 32-year legal career with the company. Born in Hornell, NY, he grew up in Corning,...

Thomas John Watson, Sr.

Former CEO of IBM who oversaw the company's growth into an international force from 1914 to 1956, Watson developed IBM's renowned management style and corporate culture, and turned the company into one...

Jeffery D. Stein

Founder and Chairman of the IT History Society, Stein has also served as the Founder and CEO of On-Line Business Systems and Convene.com, and has been active on many boards and non-profits.

Shawn Fanning

Developed Napster, one of the first popular peer-to-peer filesharing platforms

Vinton (Vint) Gray Cerf

Known as a "father of the Internet," Cerf is an American computer scientist whose contributions have been recognized with the National Medal of Technology, the Turing Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom,...

Bobby Murphy

Co-founder of Snapchat, Murphy is a Filipino-American billionaire businessman who also serves as the platform's Chief Technology Officer (CTO). He co-founded Snapchat with Evan Spiegel and Reggie Brown while they were students...

Joseph Hardin

Leader of the Comprehensive Collaborative Framework (CHEF) project, which developed an open source framework and tools for course management systems, workgroup support, and support of online research, Hardin has served as Director...

Robert (Bob) Cohn

Co-founder of Octel Communications, the company that commercialized voice mail and made it ubiquitous on cell phones, in companies, and on residential phones, Cohn established Octel with Peter Olson in 1982. Octel...

Sheryl Kara Sandberg

Chief Operating Officer of Facebook beginning in 2008, Sandberg was also the youngest woman on Fortune Magazine's "50 Most Powerful Women in Business" list in 2007. She had previously served as Vice...

Bill Atkinson

Creator of HyperCard and co-founder of General Magic, Atkinson was also part of the Apple Macintosh development team and creator of the ground-breaking MacPaint application, among others. He also designed and implemented...