My Computer Science Superheroes
Tim Burners-Lee
Birth:
June 8th, 1955
Major Academic Events:
He graduated from Queen’s College at Oxford University in 1976 with a degree in physics, and later on in 1994 joined the Laboratory for Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he holds the 3Com Founders Chair. He shares the ACM Software System Award with Robert Cailliau, Marc Andreessen, and Eric Bina for developing the Web.
Major Contributions to Computer Science:
He helped develop the Web along with Eric Bina, Robert Cailliau, and Marc Andreessen, and developed the first Web browser on a NeXT computer. The creation of the Web and the sheer multitude of opportunities he has created for many developers and innovators for years to come is nothing short of legendary, and has allowed us to evolve in the world of technology.
Joy Buolamwini
Birth:
January 23rd, 1989
Major Academic Events:
Joy Buolamwini was born in Edmonton, Canada during 1989. She went to Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Oxford and even the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for various degrees.
Major Contributions to Computer Science:
During her time at MIT, she found out that the facial recognition software couldn't recognize her face. She calls this bias the "coded gaze". This research has been covered in many countries around the world. She founded Algorithmic Justice League to talk about her findings all around the world. She even had a TED talk where she talked about racial bias in AI. Joy Buolamwini has done many things for computer science and will continue to do more in the future.
John Mcarthy
Birth:
September 4th, 1927
Death:
October 24th, 2011
Major Academic Events:
He went to the prestigious schools Oxford University, California Institute of Technology, and even Princeton where he studied mathematics and artificial intelligence. He founded and directed the artificial intelligence laboratory at Stanford. He went on to win many awards such as the Kyoto Prize, ACM Turning Award, and even the National Medal of Science.
Major Contributions to Computer Science:
McCarthy created the term "AI" and the programming lisp in 1958. Amazingly, this isn't even the beginning of his accomplishments. While teaching at MIT as a professor, he introduced the notion of timesharing. This caused major change for computer science as time sharing became the main system during the 60s and 70s.
Sources:
Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
