mous Personali

in the field of
mation Techno

bmitted by:
Katleen T. Martin
BM102A
bmitted to:
Mr. Dominic M. Ladaga

For every world-famous name with a

world famous fortune, such as Bill Gates,
Steve Jobs and Michael Dell, there are
hundreds of other individuals who have
moved the IT industry and its technology
inexorably forward.
Fame and fortune has rarely been their
immediate spur. A passion for changing the
world through technology is the hallmark of
the IT Greats. Sometimes they have changed
technology,
sometimes
they
have
transformed the way technology is marketed
or radically altered the way IT is perceived
by society.
Some have been involved in great leaps
forward, some have made incremental
changes that have stood the test of time.
Whatever the case, our industry is truly
one where we all stand on the shoulders of
giants, and we are proud to pay tribute to
some of them in the results of our IT Greats
poll.

Steve Jobs

Steve
Jobs,
the
cofounder and chief executive
of Apple Computer, topped
the Computer Weekly 40th
anniversary poll due to the
devoted following he has
generated
through
his
pioneering work in personal
computing
and
product
design.

Tim Berners Lee is the

father of the web and
champion of IT freedom. He
made the imaginative leap to
combine the internet with the
hypertext concept, and the
worldwide web was born.
In
1994,
Berners-Lee
founded the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C) at the
Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.
It
comprised
various companies willing to
create
standards
and
recommendations to improve
the quality of the web.

Tim
Berners-Lee

Bill Gates

As joint founder of the

worlds
biggest
software
company,
Microsoft,
Bill
Gatess
approach
to
technology and business was
instrumental
in
making
technology available to the
masses. Gates stood down
as the CEO of Microsoft in
2000 to focus on software
development.

In 1984, Gosling joined

Sun Microsystems where he
is
currently
the
chief
technology officer in the
developer product group.
In the early 1990s,
Gosling initiated and led a
project code-named Green
that eventually became
Java. Green aimed to
develop
software
that
would run on a variety of
computing devices without
having to be customized
for each one.

James
Gosling

Linus
Torvalds

As the creator of the Linux

operating
system,
Linus
Torvalds has been a driving
force behind the whole open
source
movement,
which
represents an ever increasing
challenge
to
proprietary
software.
Torvalds
remains
the
ultimate authority on what
new code is incorporated into
the Linux kernel.

Richard Stallman is
the founder of the GNU
Project, an initiative to
develop a complete Unixlike operating system
which is free software.
Stallman
has
written
several popular tools,
created the GNU license
and campaigns against
software patents.

Richard
Stallman

Arthur Clarke

2001:
A
Space
Odyssey writer Arthur
Clarke 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.

Ted
Codd
created 12 rules on
which
every
relational database
is
built
an
essential ingredient
for
building
business computer
systems.

Ted Codd

Steve Shirley

Steve Shirley was an

early
champion
of
women
in
IT.
She
founded the company
now known as Xansa,
pioneered new work
practices and in doing
so,
created
new
opportunities for women
in technology.

With
Brent
Hoberman, Martha Lane
Fox
created
Lastminute.com in 1998,
and as "the face" of
Lastminute raised the
profile of e-commerce
ever higher in the public
consciousness.

Martha
Lane Fox

Ken Olsen is the

founder of Dec,
who invented the
minicomputer.

Ken Olsen
Clive Sinclair is
the founder of
Sinclair
electronics,
Sinclair line of
computers.
He is also a
home
computer
visionary.

Clive Sinclair

Vinton Cerf

Vinton Cerf is
one
of
the
internet's
founding fathers.
He is also one of
the fathers of the
Internet
and
"Chief
Internet
Evangelist"
at
Google.

Bill Joy is the

co-founder of Sun
Microsystems.

Bill Joy

Larry Ellison is
a
Jewish
billionaire and the
founder of the
technology
company Oracle.

Larry Ellison

Steve
Wozniak is the
Apple co-founder.

Steve
Wozniak

Dennis Ritchie
is the inventor of
the
C
programming
language.

Dennis
Ritchie

Donald Davies
is the co-inventor
of
packet
switching.

Donald
Davies

Ken
Thompson is the
co-creator
of
Unix.

Ken
Thompson

Grace
Hopper is a
COBOL pioneer.

Grace Hopper

Paul Allen is the

Microsoft
Cofounder and he is
a wealthy Internet
Entrepreneur.

Paul Allen

Steve Ballmer
is
the
Chief
Executive Officer
(CEO) of Microsoft
Corporation.

Steve Ballmer

Jeff Bezos is the

billionaire
Amazon.com
founder
and
Internet
Entrepreneur.

Jeff Bezos
Sergey Brin is
the
Google
search
engine
co-founder and
billionaire
Internet
Entrepreneur.

Sergey Brin

Steve Case is
the AOL (America
Online)
founder.
He is also an
Internet
Entrepreneur.

Steve Case
Mark Cuban is
a
billionaire
Internet
Entrepreneur and
NBA
basketball
team owner.

Mark Cuban

Michael Dell is
the founder of Dell
Computers and he
is
a
wealthy
American
billionaire .

Michael Dell
David Filo is an
American
billionaire
cofounder of the
Yahoo!
search
engine
and
internet
portal
with Jerry Yang.

David Filo

Andy Grove is
one
of
the
founding
members of the
Intel Corporation.

Andy Grove
Takafumi Horie
is a flamboyant
young
Japanese
Internet
Entrepreneur
of
the
Livedoor
Internet Company.

Takafumi
Horie

Craig

Craig
Newmark is a
famous
American
Internet
Entrepreneur
and founder of
the
free
Newmarkclassifieds
website
Craigslist.

Pierre Omidyar
is
the
eBay
founder
and
billionaire Internet
Entrepreneur.

Pierre Omidyar

Larry Page is a
billionaire co-founder
of the successful
Google
search
engine.

Larry
Page
Bob Parsons is
the
Go
Daddy
domain
name
registrar founder
and he is also an
Internet
Entrepreneur.

Bob Parsons

Eric Schmidt is
a Technologist and
Chief
Executive
Officer (CEO) of the
Google company.

Eric
Schmidt
Meg Whitman is
the former Chief
Executive
Officer
(CEO) of the online
auction
website
eBay.

Meg
Whitman

Jerry Yang is a
billionaire Yahoo!
Incorporated cofounder.

Jerry Yang
Mark
Zuckerberg is the
famous American
billionaire founder
of
the
social
networking
site
Facebook.

Mark
Zuckerber
g

H.
Edward
Roberts
is
the
creator of the first
popular
personal
computer - MITS
Altair 8800.

H. Edward
Roberts
Chuck Peddle
is the designer of
the 6502 CPU and
the
Commodore
PET
2001
computer.

Chuck
Peddle

Lee
Felsenstein is the
designer of the
early
successful
computers - Sol20, Osborne 1.

Lee Felsenstein

Jack Tramiel is
the founder and
Chief
Executive
Officer (CEO) of
Commodore
computer
company.

Jack Tramiel

Gary
Kildall
created the first
popular computer
operating system CP/M.

Gary Kildall
Andrew Kay is
the inventor of
the
DMM,
founder
of
Kaypro,
which
created
the
Kaypro line of
portable
computers.

Andrew Kay

Azim Premji

N.R.
Narayana Murthyis
theGURU
of
Information
Technology.
He is the cofounder ofInfosys
Technologies and
is one of the most
well
known
personalities in the
Indian IT sector.

Software
tycoonMr.
Azim
Premjiis Indias Bill
Gates and one of the
Richest Indian for the
past several years.
He is the Founder
and Chairman ofWipro
Technologies one of
the largest software
companies in India.

N. R. Narayana Murthy

Sabeer
the co-

Sabeer Bhatia
Gary Morolo became
the CEO of the company
which he and Reuel Khoza
founded,
called
Coordinated Marketing &
Management (Pty) Ltd. in
1986. He also became the
Non-Executive Chairman
of two listed investee
companies,
Datacentrix
Holdings Limited and IST
Group Limited, at their
listing in the technology
sector of the JSE Limited
in1998.

Bhatiawas
founder
ofHotmail.com
theworlds
first
webmail service.
He has
announced
three
more
ventures

Arzoo, Instacoll and

SabseBol

after
Hotmail.

Gary Morolo

Vinny
Lingham

Vinny Linghamis a South

AfricanInternet
entrepreneurand the founder
and CEO ofYola, Inc.(formerly
known asSynthaSite), aSan
Francisco-basedWeb 2.0startup that provides free website
building,
publishing
and
hosting services.
He is also
the
co-founder
of
SiliconCape.com,
anNGObased
inSouth
Africathat aims to turnCape
Towninto
a
technology
hub.Lingham was previously
the founder and CEO of the
global search marketing firm
incuBeta and its subsidiary
Clicks2Customers.

Rob
is a
Chief

Sussman
joint
Executive
Officer
(CEO)
and
joint
founder
of
Integr8 Group.

Rob
Sussman