Founder of the world wide web takes top spot
Intel recently took the time to assemble a panel of experts including academics, journalists and independent third parties to vote on technology's 45 most influential people at a judging session held in London last week.
The winner? Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the 52 year old English-born developer, who invented the World Wide Web in March 1989. Acknowledged by Intel, Sir Berners-Lee has been labelled as "the most influential person in technology over the past 150 years for his impact on society and ground-breaking technology". We couldn't argue with that.
The list features the two founders of Google in second and third places, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, as Internet-based innovation leads the way. Highlighting the gender imbalance in technology over the past 150 years, the list features just three female entrants. Meg Whitman, chief executive of eBay, Ada Lovelace, who developed the analytic engine and Grace Hopper, who developed the first compiler for a computer programming language.
The two founders of Intel, Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce both featured in the top ten and perhaps surprising to some, Apple's Steve Jobs and Microsoft's Bill Gates failed to do so, they both make the list at 14th and 31st, respectively.
Here is the complete list of Intel's 45 most influential technologists from the past 150 years:
- Tim Berners-Lee (Founder of the modern-day World Wide Web)
- Sergey Brin (Co-founder of Google)
- Larry Page (Co-founder of Google)
- Guglielmo Marconi (Inventor of the Radiotelegraph system)
- Jack Kilby (Inventor of the Integrated Circuit and Calculator)
- Gordon Moore (Co-founder of Intel)
- Alan Turing (played a major role in deciphering German Code in WWII)
- Robert Noyce (Co-founder of Intel)
- William Shockley (Co-Inventor of the Transistor)
- Don Estridge (Led the development of the IBM computer)
- Doug Engelbert
- Robert Metcalfe
- Vint Cerf
- Steve Jobs
- Andrew Grove
- Seymour Cray
- Pierre Omidyar
- Shawn Fanning
- Dennis Ritchie
- Ted Hoff
- Linus Torvalds
- Shuji Nakamura
- Dave Packard
- Jean Hoerni
- William Hewlett
- John Logie Baird
- George Boole
- Martin Cooper
- John Pinkerton
- Grace Hopper
- Bill Gates
- Herman Hollerith
- Thomas Watson
- Jeff Bezos
- Meg Whitman
- Ada Lovelace
- Nolan Bushnell
- Claude Shannon
- Charles Babbage
- John Chambers
- Philo Farnsworth
- Steve Wozniak
- Larry Ellison
- Michael Dell
- Maurice Wilkes
What do you think of the list? With Internet pioneers featuring at the top, do you think it's a surprise that the founders of Facebook and MySpace haven't been given a mention? Are there any technologists that you feel should have made the list but haven't? Share your thoughts in the HEXUS community.
Official press release: SIR TIM BERNERS-LEE HEADS INTEL’S LIST OF MOST INFLUENTIAL TECHNOLOGISTS
