Jakob Nielsen

Founder of the "discount usability engineering" movement for fast and cheap improvements of user interfaces, Nielsen invented several usability methods, including heuristic evaluation — a usability inspection method for computer software that...

Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli

Co-founder of Cadence Design Systems and Synopsys—the two largest companies in Electronic Design Automation (EDA)—Sangiovanni-Vincentelli is a world-renowned authority on integrated circuit and system design who has been instrumental in bringing EDA...

Alain Glavieux

Co-inventor of turbo codes, Glavieux was a French professor of electrical engineering at Ecole Nationale Superieure des Telecommunications de Bretagne. He was the coinventor with Claude Berrou and Punya Thitimajshima of a...

Ken Howery

Co-founder of PayPal, Howery is an American investor who graduated from Stanford University in 1998 with a B.A. degree in Economics. That same year, he co-founded PayPal with Peter Thiel, Luke Nosek,...

Mark E. Dean

Co-developer of the ISA systems bus that enables multiple devices such as modems and printers to be connected to personal computers, Dean is an American inventor and computer engineer whose work is...

Niels Ivar Bech

Leader of the group that formed Regnecentralen, the first Danish computer company, Bech shaped the course of Danish computing history. He led a group that started as an advisory board formed by...

Tze-Chiang (T. C.) Chen

Major contributor to CMOS miniaturization and DRAM devices with a profound impact on IBM's leadership in CMOS process technology and DRAM manufacturing, Chen has served as an IBM Fellow and the Vice...

Ian Munro Ross

Co-inventor of epitaxy, used in silicon-based manufacturing processes for BJTs and modern CMOS and particularly important for compound semiconductors such as gallium arsenide, Ross was also an early pioneer in transistors who...

Kristen Nygaard

Co-inventor of SIMULA and pioneer of object-oriented programming, Nygaard was a computer scientist noted for his social agenda and work with the Norwegian Trade Unions. He was a systems developer and a...

Marcian (Ted) Edward Hoff

Inventor of the microprocessor, Hoff joined Intel in 1967 as employee number 12, and is credited with coming up with the idea of a universal processor instead of custom-designed circuits. His insight...

L.J. Sevin

A significant leader in the founding and growth of the U.S. high tech industry, Sevin co-founded Mostek Corporation in 1969 and later co-founded the venture capital firm Sevin Rosen Funds (SRF) with...

Jerry Yang

Co-founder of Yahoo!, Yang is a Chinese American entrepreneur who also served as the company's CEO (Chief Yahoo). Born in Taiwan in 1968, Yang immigrated to the United States with his family at...

John David McAfee

Writer of the first commercial anti-virus software in 1987, McAfee founded McAfee Associates to sell his creation. McAfee became the company's most vocal critic in later years, urging consumers to uninstall the company's...

Nils Aall Barricelli

Pioneering in artificial life research, Barricelli conducted early computer-assisted experiments in symbiogenesis and evolution that are considered foundational to the field. Being independently wealthy, he held an unpaid residency at the Institute...

Alexey Leonidovich Pajitnov

Creator of Tetris, Pajitnov developed the iconic game with the help of Dmitry Pavlovsky and Vadim Gerasimov in 1985. The game, first available in the Soviet Union, appeared in the West in...

Margaret Hamilton

Award-winning NASA computer scientist and mathematician who developed the Apollo program's on-board flight software, Hamilton is also recognized as the individual who coined the term "software engineering." Born in 1938, Hamilton graduated from...

Renato Recio

Founding engineer and author of several IO and Network industry standards that have dramatically simplified the way virtualized data centers operate, Recio is a 2011 IBM Fellow—the highest honor a scientist, engineer,...

Glen Jacob Culler

Developer of the Culler-Fried Online System, one of the first interactive computer systems in the mid-1960s era, Culler was also an important early innovator in the development of the Internet. He joined...

James Martin

Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his book *The Wired Society: A Challenge for Tomorrow*, Martin was a British Information Technology consultant and author who was one of the first to promote...

Steven R. Hetzler

Initiator and namer of iSCSI within IBM Research, Hetzler is recognized for his role in developing an Internet Protocol (IP)-based storage networking standard for linking data storage facilities. He initiated work on...