Famous People in the Field of IT

7/27/2019 Famous People in the Field of IT

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For every world-famous name with a world famousfortune, such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs andMichael Dell, there are hundreds of otherindividuals who have moved the IT industry andits technology inexorably forward.

Fame and fortune has rarely been their immediatespur. A passion for changing the world throughtechnology is the hallmark of the IT Greats.Sometimes they have changed technology,sometimes they have transformed the way

technology is marketed or radically altered theway IT is perceived by society.

Some have been involved in great leaps forward,some have made incremental changes that havestood the test of time.


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Steve Jobs: innovator who enjoyed a second bite ofthe apple

Steve Jobs, the co-founder and chief executive ofApple Computer, topped the Computer Weekly

40th anniversary poll due to the devoted followinghe has generated through his pioneering work inpersonal computing and product design.

Jobs was born in 1955 in San Francisco, and duringhis high school years he showed his early

enthusiasm for computing by attending after-school lectures at the Hewlett-Packard Companyin Palo Alto, California. He met fellow Applefounder Steve Wozniak during a summer job atHP.


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Tim Berners-Lee: father of the web and champion ofIT freedom

Dotcoms, bloggers and Google all have one man tothank for their place in the 21st century world. In

1990,Tim Berners-Lee made the imaginative leap tocombine the internet with the hypertext concept,and the worldwide web was born.

Born in 1955 in London, Berners-Lees parents wereboth mathematicians who were employed togetheron the team that built the Manchester Mark I, oneof the earliest computers.


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Bill Gates: mixing maths and money to buildmicrosoft

As joint founder of the worlds biggest softwarecompany, Microsoft, Bill Gatess approach to

technology and business was instrumental inmaking technology available to the masses.Gates was born in Seattle, Washington in 1955 to a

wealthy family: his father was a prominent lawyerand his mother served on the board of directors for

First Interstate Bank and The United Way.At school Gates excelled in mathematics and the

sciences and by the age of 13 he was deeplyengrossed in software programming.


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Of your choice of the most influential people in IT, JamesGosling is the true geek. Unlike Bill Gates and Steve Jobs,neither of whom finished college, Gosling completed a PhDin computer science and contributed to software innovationat a technical level.

Born in 1955 near Calgary, Canada, Gosling is best known asthe father of the Java programming language, the firstprogramme language designed with the internet in mindand which could adapt to highly distributed applications.

Gosling received a BSc in computer science from the Universityof Calgary in 1977, and while working towards his doctorate

he created the original version of the Emacs text editor forUnix (Gosmacs). He also built a multi-processor version ofUnix, as well as several compilers and mail systems beforestarting work in the industry.


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As the creator of the Linux operating system,Linus Torvalds has been a driving force behindthe whole open source movement, which

represents not only an ever increasingchallenge to proprietary software, but is alsothe inspiration for the industry to move to openstandards.

Torvalds remains the ultimate authority on whatnew code is incorporated into the Linux kernel.


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Richard Stallman is the founder of the GNUProject, an initiative to develop a completeUnix-like operating system which is free

software. Stallman has written several populartools, created the GNU licence and campaignsagainst software patents.


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2001: A Space Odyssey writer Arthur C Clarkehas consistently been ahead of his time inpredicting how technology will change the

world. Most notably, in 1945 he suggested thatgeostationary satellites would make idealtelecoms relays.


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Ted Codd created 12 rules on which everyrelational database is built - an essentialingredient for building business computer

systems.


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Steve Shirley was an early champion of women inIT. She founded the company now known asXansa, pioneered new work practices and in

doing so created new opportunities for womenin technology.


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With Brent Hoberman, Martha Lane Fox createdLastminute.com in 1998, and as "the face" ofLastminute raised the profile of e-commerce

ever higher in the public consciousness.


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Famous People in the Field of IT