The Presidential Medal of Freedom is one of the highest honors that can be bestowed by the President of the United States. It recognizes “An especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”
The entrepreneurial, technology-driven roots of today’s Silicon Valley sprouted long before Google’s algorithms, Apple’s two Steves, Fairchild’s chipmeisters, or the egalitarian management innovations of Hewlett and Packard. Eager emissaries from less prosperous regions of the nation and foreign governments striving to
Harold Cohen was a pioneer in computer art, in algorithmic art, and in generative art; but as he told me one afternoon in 2010, he was first and foremost a painter. He was also an engineer whose work defined the first generation of computer-generated art. His system, AARON, is one of the longest-running, continually ma
Gary Kildall was a pioneer of personal computer software. He wrote programming language tools, including assemblers (Intel 4004), interpreters (BASIC), and compilers (PL/M). He created a widely-used disk operating system (CP/M). He and his wife, Dorothy McEwen, started a successful company called Digital Research to de
David T. Morgenthaler (August 5, 1919–June 17, 2016) was a towering figure in the first generation of global technology venture capitalists. From the time he entered the field at the age of 48, until his death on June 17, 2016, at the age of 96, Morgenthaler led $3 billion of investments in more than 300 companies.
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On April 16, 2016, Silicon Valley’s most influential technologists traded in their signature jeans and hoodies for suits and gowns as they joined technology leaders, innovators, and visionaries from around the world at the Computer History Museum for its 2016 Fellow Awards.
Andrew S. Grove was a seminal figure in the history of the semiconductor industry, and in the story of high-technology industry in Silicon Valley. He passed away on March 21st, 2016. Born in Hungary in 1936, Grove faced, and overcame, profound challenges: A Jewish child who survived German and then Soviet occupations,
Sixty years ago, on February 14, 1956, two remarkable people addressed a luncheon for scientists, educators and the press at San Francisco’s Hotel St. Francis. One of the speakers would become one of the most successful businessmen and respected philanthropists of his generation. The other would go on to win a Nobel Pr
The Fellow Awards are a long-standing tradition at the Computer History Museum, dating back to 1987 when the Museum inducted its very first Fellow, computer scientist and US Navy rear admiral Grace Hopper. The Fellow Awards are an opportunity for the Museum to celebrate the heroes of computing—men and women who have ma
