Important People in Computer Science

Charles Babbage

(1791-1871) English mathematician, engineer, philosopher and inventor. Professor at Cambridge. Originated the concept of the programmable computer, and designed one but never completed it.

Ada Lovelace

(1815-1852) She is considered to be the first computer programmer. She wrote a computer language for the Analytical Engine. Continued the work started by Charles Babbage.

Alan Turing

(1912-1954) introduced the concept that machines could perform mathematical computations. He played a key roll in breaking the "Enigma" code in WW II.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke

(1917-2008) Wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey and has consistently been ahead of his time in predicting how technology will change the world. Most notably, in 1945 he suggested that geostationary satellites would make ideal telecoms relays.

Barbara Liskov

(1939-present) MIT Professor who helped develop and implement the first programming language to support data abstraction - An example would be storing the text 'hello' in a single variable rather than having numerous occurrences of 'hello' in a program.

Steve Wozniak

(1950-present) Co-founder of Apple and creator of the Apple I and Apple II computers

Steve Jobs

(1955-2011) computer industry giant who started Apple Computers, Macintosh, I-Phone, etc.

Bill Gates

(1955-present) American computer software designer who Co-founded Microsoft and built it into one of the Largest computer software manufacturers

Tim Berners-Lee

(1955-present) Created the World Wide Web Winner of the Turing Award 2016

Michael Dell

(1955-present)Founder and CEO of Dell. Dell Computers wants his company to take market share from Hewlett-Packard and Apple in the category of printers.

Guido van Rossum

(1956-present) Creator of Python programming language. Python is known for its versatility and is used by countless programmers and companies including Spotify and Dropbox.

Carl Sassenrath

(1957-present) You'd have to choose between typing a document and reading an article or browsing Facebook and checking your email. Everything would take ten, maybe even twenty times as long to complete if not for his work.

Brendan Eich

(1961 present) JavaScript - developed the programming language or script, which is most widely used in HTML or browsing pages. Co-founded the Mozilla.

Elon Musk

(1971-present) Inventor, entrepreneur, and engineer who started Tesla, and X.com (which eventually formed into PayPal). His ideas of developing a Hyperloop, introducing self-driving cars available to everyone, and leading SolarCity (leading solar energy provider) may have extraordinary impact on the world in the future.

Larry Page

(1973-present) Co-founder of Google (with Sergey Brin) who wrote the algorithms for the first search-engine of its kind. He accomplished Google's mission statement to "organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful".

Sergey Brin

(1973-present) Co-founder of Google with Larry Page

Mark Zuckerberg

(1984-present) Founder of Facebook

Virginia Marie "Ginni" Rometty

American business executive. She is the current chair, president, and CEO of IBM, and the first woman to head the company.

Paul Allen

Co-founder of Microsoft with Bill Gates.

Tim Wu

Coined the phrase "Net Neutrality"

Clarence "Skip" Ellis

Computer scientist; First African American with a Ph.D. in computer Science Software inventor including Office Talk at Xerox PARC.

Admiral Grace Murray Hopper

Grandma COBOL; She was at Harvard when a moth was found to have shorted out the Mark II, and is sometimes given credit for the invention of the term "computer bug"—though she didn't actually author the term, she did help popularize it. Hour of Code and Computer Science week honor her accomplishments

Katherine Johnson

NASA mathematician, African-American woman, literally a rocket scientist who helped put a man on the moon.

Susan Diane Wojcicki

The CEO of YouTube involved in the founding of Google, and became Google's first marketing manager in 1999.

Alan Kay

Visionary & scientist who pursues far-out ideas -the best way to predict the future is to *invent it*, be proactive - Winner of the Turing Award 2003

Douglas Engelbart

invented the computer mouse - Winner of the Turing Award - 1997