I ask because I'm going to be discussing that question tomorrow as part of an Intel event marking the roll-out of its nanometre chips. It's a big question and a lot of names spring to mind. Handily, Intel has sent participating journalists a suggested long-list, which is designed to help us choose our final The list has a lot of the usual suspects: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Page, William Hewlett and Dave Packard.

It also has some younger upstarts: Mark Zuckerberg Facebook founder , Shawn Fanning Napster creator , Philip Rosedale Second Life and Jonathan Ive iPod, iMac designer. But would you include Richard Branson, Charles Dunstone Carphone Warehouse chief executive , Nolan Bushnell founder of Atari or Nikolas Zennstrom founder of Skype? From a purely British perspective I would have to include Sir Clive Sinclair.

With the ZX81 and particularly the Spectrum he allowed the computer to enter our homes and with BASIC taught a generation the 'joys' of programming. Lydon B Johnson - yes the American president for standardising the use of ASCII across all US computers. The head of marketing at Apple - for convincing us all that whatever they do is invented by themselves and much better than everyone else. Narinder Singh Kapany - Pioneer in this centuries development of fibre optics according to Wikipedia!

Without which the reference probably wouldn't exist. Alan Turing - inventor of the Bombe at Bletchley Park to crack Enigma. Sir Tim Berners-Lee - inventor of the World Wide Web. John Logie Baird - inventor of television. Steve Furber - for his for with processor design, as if been part of the design team for the BBC Micro wasn't enough. Bill Gates - Regardless of how evil you might percieve microsoft, he was ahead of the curve in understanding the appeal of computers as a tool on a desk, rather than having a working environment to support the computer.

Linus Torvalds - Creator of what may become the most popular operating system on the planet if future versions of the Windows OS continue to be as popular as Vista. The most important are Kilby and Noyce, the 2 American engineers who btween them invented the integrated circuit silicon chip without which none of the modern electronics would exist.

I'd like to nominate Clive Sinclair and Alan Sugar for innovation and marketing, thereby enabling micro-computing to develope and become widely and economically accessible and available to home users. It seemed too obvious to miss out but I thought I'd mention Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide Web. Also Tim O'Reilly is the founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, thought by many to be the best computer book publisher in the world.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee - Invertor of the web! How about the mane who actually invented what most people call the internet but is really the World Wide Web. A man who has had very little recognition. Tim Berners-Lee - the British genius nobody has heard of! What about the guys at Manchester University who built the first programmable computer, or, the inventor of the transistor, the integrated circuit etc.

Ultimately it is a story of science and technology. The business men with clever ideas of how to make use of the technology are essentially only parasites or symbionts if you want to be generous. If they hadn't come along someone else would. Tim Berners Lee for the invention of the World Wide Web without which this discussion would not be taking place.

Inventors of the C Programming language pretty much all of Windows, Linux, MacOS and Unix and most of the applications that run on them are written in C or C derived languages: Dennis Richie Brian Kernighan. Founders of MITS who produced first personal computer and gave Microsoft their first break: Forrest Mims Ed Roberts. And finally, the godfathers of information theory and the modern computer: Alan Turing John von Neumann. It depends if you're interested in businessmen, or technical gurus.

They aren't the same. Famously, Steve Jobs can only just hold a soldering iron and isn't a coder, while Bill Gates is known to be only just competent when it comes to coding Google the MS Basic game "Donkey" for more info. Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie -- inventors of Unix, without which this website wouldn't be here, and there would be no Linux or OS X. Burrell Smith and Andy Hertzfeld -- the hardware and software gurus behind the original Macintosh in , although other people were involved -- see folklore.

Jack Tramiel -- head of Commodore and Atari at various times and responsible for much of the revolution in personal computing. Steve Wozniak -- one of the original founders of Apple, and sole creator of the Apple II computer, another revolutionary computing item; he emphasised the fun in personal computing.

Tim Berners Lee -- inventor of the Web NOT the Internet! I needn't mention Richard Stallman, because a million other people will, but personally I think his input is overrated. And Linus Torvalds, for pretty much the same reason. It's just a marketing event, so not really a definitive list, but I hope they've included Tim Berners-Lee. Nolan Bushnell - developed the first video game and founded Atari computers - leading to computer graphics developments.

If you want to put Steve Jobs in the list, then you have to include his Co-founder of Apple, Steve Wozniak Sorry, don't know if that's the right spelling! Steve Jobs certainly knows how to sell and market, but it was Woz who was the technical genius behind AppleII. And who was the guy that founded Intel?? He should be there too! Has to be Bob Taylor, a man without whom we probably wouldn't have the Internet.

He worked at ARPA and Xerox PARC, inventing many of the technologies we use daily today ethernet, mouse, windows etc. Also on the Internet front, Donald Davies, Robert Baran, Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Calliau all deserve a mention. An essential member of this list should be Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, without whose pioneering work on the precursor to the World Wide Web at CERN and susequently. Where would we be without it?

Tim Burners Lee - For obvious reasons. Linus Torvolds - pioneer of the first widespread open source os Bill wasn't really pioneering new ground with Windows. Shawn Fanning - Napster was basically the death knell for the record companies. In terms of impact that has a lot of consequences internationally and across other industries. It's also the main use of most home users for their machines.

The other choices IMO should all be more old skool tech, going back to the first computer. Babbage is good and all but he is a leaf and is therefore not influential.

I'm pretty sure the people who made the first proper computer weren't thinking about him. What about Michael Dell? Linus Torvalds for Linux and Richard Stallman for the for Free Software Foundation and how they both opened up software to every person from every walk of life.

Surely Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, made the single most important contribution. And he's British too. Steve Furber, designer of the BBC micro, brought computers to the masses too, and also started the development of the ARM chip that is now found in almost every portable device.

The populations of India, China and any other developing asian country - Who else would provide us with a limited amount of customer service. Gordon Gould, inventor of the laser. Fibre optic communications, CD, DVD, holography, barcodes, surgery, eyesight correction etc.

John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain and William Shockley, inventors of the transistor. I doubt anyone mentioned in the article above would be particularly noteworthy if we were still using vacuum tubes As I understand it; Alan Turing was behind the maths that broke the codes. Colossus, and its predecessor, Robinson, were machines that sped up those maths calculations - Colossus dramatically so.

It was Colossus that was the first electronic computer and it was designed and built by Tommy Flowers. Technology has grown in such a way that it is the user who actually can largely determine use or functionality 2.

Who had a hand in shaping technology in such a way that the user has choices this would include the Mark Shuttleworth's and Bill Gates - in their respective ways. Add Linus and Richard Stallman. Without them my intense interest in computers would have been far to expensive to follow. However I would also add Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman.

Without them who knows how we the general public and not just GCHQ would exchange secret information. How about Orville and Wilbur Wright? Air travel must be a defining techhnology for the last years. Who had a hand in shaping technology in such a way that the user has choices this would include the Mark Shuttleworths and Bill Gates - in their respective ways. In technology as a whole? Well, the Wright brothers ought to be in there, as has Sir Frank Whittle. I'd nominate Larry Wall; perl's rather unfashionable these days, but the impact it had on bioinformatics and the human genome project in particular was immense and will be felt for decades to come.

Outside the obvious candidates; what about porn's role in the availability of high-bandwidth ISPs - Jenna Jameson and Ron Jeremy, perhaps?

I agree with Alex, especially Alan Turing and the team at Station X. Anyone who has spent time at Bletchley Park will realise what we owe to these unsung heroes - I wonder if the 'usual suspects' would have been happy being quite so unsung.

:: bozunoteyuta.web.fc2.com ::

I suggest Sir Tim Berners-Lee who invented the world wide web. We could not be having this discussion if it weren't for him!

More importantly the WWW has enabled a transformation in the way we learn and communicate and in the way that we do business. What about some of the amazing Asian entrepreneurs? Sony, Nintendo, Acer, etc. Also, people behind key technologies which have enabled the technology revolution - CRT; LCD; HDD From the UK: Who invented the silicon transistor? I would have thought they would have been key to an event tied to the roll out of a 45 nanometer chip.

Has anyone mentioned Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee? All he did was invent the World Wide Web. He's way more influential than Microsoft and Apple put together! I think a guy from Pakistan the world first hacker who let the technology think about their importance- He is the pioneer of the security and networks. Without them who knows how we would exchange secret information. Richard Stallman Without his seminal and steadfast influence there'd be no open source movement.

Alan Turing - apart from the computing contribution, his work at Bletchley helped changed world history. Messrs Diffie, Helman, Rivest, Shamir, Adelman I agree with Alex. Alan Turing should be at the top of the list. You should also include Tim Berner-Lee as his brainchild WWW has developed into huge phenomenon. Thomas Merrill, Lawrence G.

Roberts and Leonard Kleinrock for their pioneering work on packet switching which without we would not have had the Internet as it is today. Errm, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web? Bardeen, Brattain and Shockley, who invented the semiconducting transistor? Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux which runs most of the Web?

Gordon Moore, pioneering co-founder of Intel and man behind the eponymous Moore's Law? Fert and Gruenberg for the discovery of Giant Magnetoresistance enabling far denser data storage: Dave Winer et al.

I wouldn't include Zuckerberg: Facebook is very much a product rather than a technology. It wasn't the first social network - MySpace was surely earlier, and others earlier still. In ten years time, will Facebook still be around, or will they be a footnote to history in the same way that AltaVista are now? John logey Baird - TV and Radar Jack Kilby - Silicone Chip Nick Holonyack - LED Blitzer and Slottow - Plasma Technology.

He is credited with the first implementation of microprogramming, the ideas of symbolic labels, macro's and sub-routine libraries.

All of these have made significant contributions to current design of high level programming languages. How are you measuring importance?

Many of the names you have mentioned have applied BUSINESS principles to the USE of technology, but have not themselves invented or developed it. Technology underpins all of our modern society but the names of the engineers are known only to a few.

Even Gormley's art depends on Ove Arup engineering and technical expertize in structures to realize it in fact. Seymour Cray, architect of the first super computers Thomas Watson, IBm, Moore of Intel. Your list is a who's who of the business of technology. Stallman, Torvald, Kerrigan, Riche, Joy etc. It's little geeky and slightly leftfield but I would have to put Shigeru Miyamoto up there for his influence over the development of video games and Hiroshi Yamauchi for his work as chief on Nintendo for many many years.

How about Alan Sugar? Amstrad word processors did more than anything to popularise the idea of having a computer at home in the UK. Arthur C Clarke Communication satellites, anyone?

Thomas Alva Edison Boo! But significant Guglielmo Marconi Nolan Bushnell Bill Gates Paul Allen Steve Jobs Richard Stallman Linus Torvalds Alan Turing Shawn Fanning William Hewlett Dave Packard Ken Thompson Dennis Richie Robert Noyce Gordon Moore Clive Sinclair Narinder Singh Kapany. Mark Shuttleworth Charles Dunstone Richard Branson why was he suggested? Hopefully not for licensing a brand name to NTL. Let's wait and see if that has any significant impact.

Mark Zuckerberg Facebook wasn't first, and will be superceded by something else. A significant body of software and knowledge is written for free by voluntary contributors all over the world. This software gives people a cheap and customizable option to commercial programs.

And is used widely in education, research and to an increasing extent on private home computers. People that have significantly contributed to this effort should be mentioned: Why do you think 'technology' only started with ipods and laptops? The world was changed to a far greater degree by things like the jet engine Frank Whittle Television Marconi Plastic some chap in ICI Radar Watt and Splitting the atom various people These things allowed us to make greater strides than being able to download the latest Travis album.

Technology isn't just electronics and computing - what about Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine? Or Igor Sigorsky helicopter or Kary Mullis the polymerase chain reaction , or indeed Mikhail Kalashnikov. I think you differentiate between REAL contributions to technology, rather than commercialisation of technology. My list of real contributions would include, for example:. Tim Berners-Lee must be one of the 45 - presumably he's on the 'long list' but not mentioned in your summary.

No mention of Tim Berners-Lee in your list, the man who invented the concept of the world wide web whilst working at CERN. Surely one of the greatest innovations of the late 20th century. How about Robert Charles Alexander inventor of Stereophonic sound or Mr Dolby of DD. The world of music and movies has greatly benefited even though I prefer DTS. How about Tim Berners-Lee for creating the World Wide Web and Pierre Omidyar Founder and Chairman, eBay?

Vin Cerf and collaborators for the design of the TCP protocol without which the internet could not have grown the way it did. Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain for the transistor without which computers would be doing even more damage to global warming than they are.

I would certainly put Trevor Baylis in the first Inventor of the clockwork radio and torch. When the electricity and the fuel runs out we can at least wrap ourselves in blankets, wind up a very dim light, and listen to the radio. We might even be able to play with a clockwork laptop. It would fit in with earlier clockwork inventions like the clock to tell the time of course.

Nearly everything else mentioned that has been invented in the last century relies on electricity. The challenge would be to make the components without electricity as well. The clockwork bit would be alright they were building clocks in but the electronic components might be a little more difficult. But this would be to test our ingenuity in a post-electric, post-oil, post- nuclear age. Tim Berners-Lee and Sir Clive Sinclair - both of these individuals have done more than most to bring computing power and information to the masses.

I suppose in the same vain we ought to consider Michael Dell - although I see him more as an opportunistic industrialist rather than a man with true vision. What about Sir Tim Berners-Lee? He possibly contributed more to IT than all the others put together. How about John Bardeen, William Shockley, and Walter Brattain of Bell Labs who developed the transistor? All this would not be possible without this fundamental building block. Without whom I would have lost my faith in British farce.

The title of this piece by Darren Waters is Whos Who of Technology, yet all your enties so far are confined to computers.

I think that technology is a much much wider subject that includes a vast amount of areas well outside of computers. Perhaps the title should be better defined if you are merely talking about the narrow field of computers. Similarly John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz for BASIC a programming language that acted as an introduction for many people to learn how to program.

I fully support the need to celebrate the worlds' innovators but I am frustrated how the word 'technology' has been high jacked to mean only development associated with the internet or a mobile. So your nominees are very true Alex. There I have used the word which really needs to be reclaimed and applauded!

Something between an Oscar and a Nobel Prize would be just right. Well, given that this is an intel event, the obvious candidate is Jerry Sanders the CEO of AMD that in the '90s pushed the Athlon and forced intel out of its complancency and into pushing new technologies. This competition still ongoing is probably one reason that 45nm chips are rolling out this year instead of in Tim Berners-Lee must be one of the 45 presumably he's on the long-list, but wasn't mentioned in your selection of names.

Steve Wozniak hands down who created the Apple I and brought computer technology to the home ahead of IBM. And the engineers at Xeox for creating the first mouse and GUI interface, which would eventually be copied by Steve Jobs which also copied by Bill Gates.

Love or hate his politics, there's no denying the influence of Richard Stallman on the technology of today. Although others such as Linus Torvalds, Larry Wall have delivered stunning successful software, Stallman's purity of vision and the simple genius of the GPL stand proud.

If you want to step away from computing technology, years includes WWII: Barnes Wallis, Reginald Mitchell, Oppenheimer? Or the various other technologists, responsible for new materials various plastics and metallic alloys , the guys that put men on the moon, whoever invented the mobile phone.. If it's really about technology your list should be broader than that. What about aviation, space research, agricultural technology, vaccination kits, etc?

In terms of global impact and significance, things like the invention and deployment of the tractor, the jet engine and modern medical technology leave the iPod, the Atari and Second Life way behind. If you really want to compare just among those you named in the article, maybe you should rename your list to "digital technology"?

You seem to be using the word technology to mean computers and the internet. There is a lot more technology out there than is covered by those narrow fields. Therefore I'm suggesting George de Mestral and Harry Coover. What did they do you ask?

They are respectively the inventors of velcro and superglue. Products that are much more influential than those of Mark Zuckerberg, Shawn Fanning, and Philip Rosedale. You must include Tom Kilburn, who built 'Baby' and on it ran the world's first executed stored program at 11am on 21 June , thereby effectively creating the modern software industry.

And finally Jeff Minter founder of Llamasoft and number one electro-hippy for creating the craziest, most original and mindbendiest games of 80's. Without Sir Tim Berners-Lee, posting this comment would not be possible. If you agree that communication is very important to every aspect of life, then TBL must be there. In fact, a real contender for the number one slot. Gary Kildal, co-founder of Digital Research - a real pioneer in PC development.

At the time of Kildall's death, Bill Gates commented that he was "one of the original pioneers of the PC revolution" and "a very creative computer scientist who did excellent work. It's got to favour people who have made fundamental inventions over those who have commercialised them. So your nominees are suitably challenging Alex. Is this computer technology only which is what most folks have opted for or technology in general? Here's some names I have not seen up there yet Wallace Carothers - Nylon, polymers.

The engineers at Xeox for creating the first mouse and Graphical User Interface which we're all using right now. Without the space race how far would computer technology have progressed?

Whoever the 45 are, and I agree with many of the inclusions above, please please don't put them in any order of importance. Its just not appropriate to turn it into a pseudo-top44 ? Admiral Grace Hopper - not only for her mathematical and computer programming contributions, but for teaching us the significance of "nanometer.

William Shockley, a controversial figure, but should be there nonetheless for playing a fundamental role in the invention of the transistor and involved in early attempts in commercialising them and in effect founding Silicon Valley. How about Bob Moog? William Shockley for the transistor, and Marconi for radio communications. He just about squeezes into your years. Robert Goddard for the liquid fuelled rocket. Werner von Braun and Sergei Korolev for the practical realisation of spaceflight.

Arthur C Clarke for the comsat concept. Frank Whittle for the jet engine. I would recommend a pioneer of what we do with technology rather than the individuals above Interesting that all the names mentioned by you are all contemporary, working in the field of computing or electronics and very much alive. What about those whose work was in other "heavy" technologies that are still extraordinarily important to our lives? The following are just a few British engineers whose work was probably more significant than most of the names you have mentioned: Charles Parsons who developed the steam turbine , John Baker who came up with the concept of plastic theory of collapse - fundamental to the design of steel framed buildings , Bennett Melvill Jones the importance of streamlining in aircraft or Frank Whittle inventor of the jet engine.

Just outside your timeframe is Joseph Bazalgette chief engineer to the Metropolitan Board of Works - one of the predecessors to the Greater London Authority who has probably had the greatest impact the day-to-day lives of Londoners as we are still using the sewers, roads and bridges that he designed and built. For fundamentally changing social interactions and delivering a great platform, even though the full effects of it haven't been felt yet, I would have to say the founders of Twitter.

Julian Schwinger, Richard Feynman, and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, co-winners of the Nobel prize in physics, for developing quantum theory to the point where it could be used for practical purposes quantum electrodynamic theory, or QED. It is the most accurate and useful scientific theory we have to date, which alongside relativity theory underpins all modern physics including electronic devices , and also all modern chemistry.

Philo Farnsworth for television, Alan Turing for computing. Tim Berners Lee for the WWW. The rest are just hangers-on. Robert Oppenheimer and General Groves of the Manhatten Project - they developed a technology that still has the world scared senseless 60 - 70 odd years later! How about John Chambers, or Lerner and Bosack who founded Cisco? It's easy to focus on software, content and ICT hardware but let's not forget the infrastructure of the Internet without which this wouldn't be possible Many think this as the greatest invention of the 20th century thats up for argument William Shockley - the co-inventor of the transistor.

It was this and his obnoxious personality which brought about, due to his researchers leaving and setting up there own companies, the emergence of Silicon Valley. If he had been a nicer guy would there have been an Intel, or an AMD? If we are talking about technology perhaps we should start at the beginning. Without Alan Turing and the Bletchley Park code crackers there may not have been a computer at all by now. Of course Mr Marconi et al chipped in with wireless technology. Forget Gates and the rest.

They are just riding the wave of British and British-based technologists. Let us celebrate them instead of a few Yankee upstarts! Absolutely loving the number of commentators on Tim Berners-Lee that rightly recognise his importance, and wrongly presume themselves to be the first to notice it. Commentators seem remarkably versed in the history of computing, yet utterly incapable of reading!

One name not many mention: His books have been an inspiration to our generation. Even Linux was born because Linus was inspired by the Minix book. Not to mention the fact that Minix was a fully working OS. I don't know much about his theoretical contributions to the field of computing, but his contributions to education are unquestionable.

Claude Shannon for pioneering IT Huffman for the compression Von Neumann for the architecture. Sergei Pavlovich Korolev - the "chief designer" of Sputnik the world's first artificial satellite. Konrad Zuse - German computer scientist who was responsible for the first high level programming language in the immediate aftermath of the war.

Wilbur and Orville Wright - Inventors of the first succesful aeroplane. You could argue against their inclusion because their greatest achievement was just more than years ago. Ross Perot - founder of EDS. EDS rewrote how computer business was done in its era. Perot's vision changed the whole world of business. Companies were able to outsource large projects to EDS and hence EDS was able to centralise expertise and management. Professor George Gray has to go on the list- as developer of room temperature stable liquid crystals.

It's staggering to think of the number of devices that rely on LCDs. I was lucky enough to have him as my supervisor at University - a nicer self-effacing chap you couldn't meet. Sorry, you're probably wrong! All posts are moderated, meaining that the majority of the TBL posts are likely to have been written before the first one appeared. Commentators seem remarkably versed in how people comment, yet are utterly incapable of understanding the mechanics of it! But here's an aside: Why do people insist on saying 'Without "abc" we wouldn't have "xyz" today!

It's like suggesting that if Mr Edison hadn't wrapped Humphrey Davy's discovery in an oxygen-free glass bubble, we'd still be lighting our homes and workplaces with candles and gaslamps! All credit to Thomas Edison of course, I don't mean to take that away, but I do still think that we'd have the wheel today, even if the original inventor had decided to turn his hand to cultivating spinach instead.

He's neither invented nor contributed anything other than just redoing what has been around for years.

Really many of the names have little impact on the average 'non-techy' I would suggest: Alec Issigonis - designer of the Mini, I would say personal transport development is a critical technology from the last years Werner Von Braun - the whole of the planet was mesmerised by the space program Tim Berners-Lee - the inventor of the underpinning web technology without which few of those mentioned would be noted Kao and Hockham - Inventors of the optic fibre.

The bloke who published PGP encryption software back in the early 's and thus opened the door for free public key encryption. Without this, secure communication over the net vital for shopping, teleworking, or just private email would not exist. Those who think that Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the Internet are obviously not qualified to nominate him. Wright brothers - flight, although stretching the year limit international flight has revolutionised the world.

Guglielmo Marconi - radio etc. A lot of the big advances aren't people though - NTT and others for the mobile, solar power, computer - many people inc those mentioned above and MANY more - ENIAC, colossus teams etc - the telephone - Bell labs etc. We could not have a list without Nyquist and Claude Elwood Shannon.

These guys pioneered digital technology. They have truely shaped the digital age. This company is a shining example of the finest the UK has to offer A pitty no one takes any notice Philo Farnsworth, inventor of the electronically scanned television.

The Wright Brothers and Robert Goddard, aerospace was a major catalyst for much of technological development of the last years. Jon Von Neumann, didn't truly invent, but put his name to the modern computer architecture of a single memory store for instructions and data.

Robert Oppenheimer, surely the atom bomb and the subsequent Cold War helped spur technological advance. Watson and Crick, perhaps the two most important biologists since Darwin and likely more important than him.

Possibly in the history of biology. I'd also add a whole list of influential science fiction authors. Besides many of them being scientists themselves, they helped put the wonder of technological advance into the public mind, that helped push development as well as inspiring many later innovators to study technological fields.

I'd go as far as to list important politicians who supported national standards, funded research, development and infrastructure, and helped hammer out international agreements regarding technology.

As for recent computer science: Nolan Bushnell of Atari, for introducing computer technology as a home appliance. Jack Trammel of Atari and Commodore, ignoring the popularity of the Commodore 64, his purchase of MOS Technologies, maker of the processor, meant Atari, Nintendo, Apple, etc.

Basically introducing vertical integration into computing.

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Bill Gates, love him or hate him he moved the real money maker of computers from hardware to software. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, for introducing the GUI to the masses. Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, and thousands if not millions of Open Source developers, their model of software development and licensing is challenging the current licensing model and returning computing back to the s "hacker ethic" of software engineering for the sake of "one-ups manship".

And simply the billions of computer users today who's pocketbooks are pushing development and the marketing people making them think they need as much power in their pocket as a s supercomputer. Rory Cellan-Jones is the BBC's technology correspondent. Maggie Shiels is the BBC's tech reporter based in Silicon Valley.

Visit the Technology index Visit the BBC News website. Accessibility Links Skip to content Skip to bbc. Skip to main content Access keys help. I'd love to hear your suggestions of who should or should not make the final list. I'll come back with the list that was agreed on by Wednesday morning. A few less than obvious ones Charles Babbage - Not really in the last century but without his vision where might we be?

Lydon B Johnson - yes the American president for standardising the use of ASCII across all US computers Clive Sinclair - Obviously The head of marketing at Apple - for convincing us all that whatever they do is invented by themselves and much better than everyone else Mark Shuttleworth - For putting his money where his mouth is with Linux Ubuntu Narinder Singh Kapany - Pioneer in this centuries development of fibre optics according to Wikipedia!

Tim Berners-Lee - For his work in helping design what would later explode into the internet. Frank Whittle Stanley Hooker TOM Sopwith Werner Von Braun Tim Berners-Lee - without whom we wouldn't be having this discussion. Tim Berners - Lee founder of the modern day internet , surely? A glaringly obvious one: Sir Tim Berners Lee.

I would have thought it was obvious. Tim Berners-Lee, because without him we wouldn't have Facebook or Second Life or anything else. Tommy Flowers who designed and built Colosuss. Jack Kilby the inventor of the integrated circuit. Shockley, Bardeen and Bratain for the invention of the transistor. For what it's worth, here's my list of 20 odd: Kahn Vinton Cerf Inventor behind the transistor and high speed logic: Robert Shockley Founders of Intel: Robert Noyce Gordon Moore Founders of Microsoft: Bill Gates Paul Allen Inventor of Electronic Television: Philo Farnsworth Inventors of the C Programming language pretty much all of Windows, Linux, MacOS and Unix and most of the applications that run on them are written in C or C derived languages: Dennis Richie Brian Kernighan Inventor of Unix: Ken Thompson Principle programmer for Microsoft: Charles Simonyi Leader of the team that developed the first "modern" workstation: Alan Kay Founders of Apple: Steve Jobs Steve Wozniak Leader of team behind original IBM PC: Don Estridge Founder of commodore, designer of and behind Chuck Peddle Founders of MITS who produced first personal computer and gave Microsoft their first break: Forrest Mims Ed Roberts Super computer designer: Seymour Cray Inventor of the hard drive: Johnson And finally, the godfathers of information theory and the modern computer: My "people of interest": Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie -- inventors of Unix, without which this website wouldn't be here, and there would be no Linux or OS X Burrell Smith and Andy Hertzfeld -- the hardware and software gurus behind the original Macintosh in , although other people were involved -- see folklore.

You should consider the contribution from Admiral Grace Hopper of the US Navy. Vint Cerf - developed the IP protocols on which the internet is based.

Nolan Bushnell - developed the first video game and founded Atari computers - leading to computer graphics developments Harry Nyquist - fundamental work in digital coding. Tim Berners-Lee is a must. How is it that the name of Tim Berners-Lee isn't at the top of your list?! The founder of Starbucks for keeping us geeks caffeined up. Tim Berners-Lee - the WWW. Ted Nelson - for trying to drive hypertext forward. And a few slightly more obvious ones: I can't believe you didn't mention Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

He invented this Internet thing that everybody seems to be going on about these days. The most recent should only be: Pacman - The character that introduced the masses to the idea of computer entertainment.

How about Tim Berners-Lee I think you may be missing the fact that Alan Turing didn't build Colossus, Tommy Flowers did. Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee OM KBE FRS FREng FRSA who invented the World Wide Web.

Who is the most important figure over the past years? Heres another vote for Mark Shuttleworth. I would have thought Tim Berners Lee.

He practically invented the internet! And James Watson and Francis Crick? Ditto for bio-technology, especially in recent years. I'd agree with Turing and Babbage and would add John von Neumann to the list. Turing's a given, I'd imagine. Hackers Crackers I think a guy from Pakistan the world first hacker who let the technology think about their importance- He is the pioneer of the security and networks.

Linus Torvalds Without whom there'd be no Linux kernel Richard Stallman Without his seminal and steadfast influence there'd be no open source movement Sir Tim Berners Lee - "father of the web" Alan Turing - apart from the computing contribution, his work at Bletchley helped changed world history Messrs Kernighan, Ritchie, Weinberger I think the biggest names all hail from the early to mid 70's. All of those people had the vision to see where all of this was going. Tim Berners-Lee for creating the www.

Sir Maurice Wilkes is probably one of the most important Computer Scientists since the war. He also did extensive work on timesharing systems and distributed computing. My two choices would be: Sir Tim Berners-Lee, for obvious reasons. Ken Kutaragi, the "Father of the Playstation. Tim Berners-Lee - for the web. Surely Tim Berners-Lee must be near the top of the list. And how about Tommy Flowers, head of the Colossus project? In no particular order. But significant Guglielmo Marconi Nolan Bushnell Bill Gates Paul Allen Steve Jobs Richard Stallman Linus Torvalds Alan Turing Shawn Fanning William Hewlett Dave Packard Ken Thompson Dennis Richie Robert Noyce Gordon Moore Clive Sinclair Narinder Singh Kapany Out: The idea of the Facebook founder getting on the list is just risible.

James Gosling - The inventer of Java. Without him would anything work? My list of real contributions would include, for example: Paul C Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield for magnetic resonance imaging MRI scanning. Harry Coover, inventor of Superglue. Gordon Gould, Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation LASER technology. Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt, development of radar. The world of music and movies has greatly benefited even though I prefer DTS Andrew.

Tim Berners-Lee - for the web browser. Richard Stallman - For the GPL. The Google Guys - for their search engine. Jimmy Wales - For Wikipedia. Without a doubt, Alan Turing. Computing wouldn't be where it is today without his brilliance. Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee OM KBE FRS FREng FRSA for inventing the WWW. John von Neumann has got to be well up the list somewhere. I can't believe there is no mention of the creator of the world wide web Tim Berners-Lee.

Doug Engelbart for the Mouse, Groupware, Hypertext and window based graphical user interfaces Shockley, Bardeen and Brattain for the transistor without which computers would be doing even more damage to global warming than they are. I'd want to see Linus Torvalds, the author of the Linux kernel. He possibly contributed more to IT than all the others put together Jonathan. Tim Berners Lee, inventor of HTML, without whom, this page would not exist. Alan Turing for Collossus and Tommy Flowers, who built it.

The guys who came up with RSA encryption, without which I would have to shop offline. Tim Berners-Lee - for creating HTML, the language that this website is written in. Linus Benedict Torvalds for starting Linux, the open source operating system.

Dennis Ritchie for creating the C programming language. Tim Berners Lee for not only inventing the world wide web, but giving it away free! Who are we referring to as technology innovators? And, of course, Nicholas Negroponte: George Foreman for his grill. I'll second Alan Turing, he advanced the state of the art by a stunning amount.

These guys changed the world. Steve Jobs merely markets it. Sophie Wilson and Steve Furber for the BBC micro and bringing IT to classrooms in the 80's. Jack Tramiel for the Commodore A few distinguished names: Bardeen, Shockley and Brattain, for the transistor. Claude Shannon, for digital logic. Suffice to say, without these people the likes of Steve Jobs would be shining shoes somewhere. Some of his other achievements are listed in Wikipedia as: Wallace Carothers - Nylon, polymers OUT All those guys who run shops flogging mobile phones and broadband.

What's so special about Facebook??

Abkürzungen - Info

Would Sir Frank Whittle - creator of the jet engine be included as "technology" is very broad. I think James Dyson for inventing good vacum cleaners that don't lose their suck.

How about the team at Loughborough Uni who developed the LASER from concept to something useful? Tim Berners-Lee for inventing the web. Why is he never put on lists of this kind? No QED, no modern society, especially computers. Linus Torvalds - creator of Linux! Apart from the obevious candidates mentioned in the article John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley The inventors of the Transistor effect Many think this as the greatest invention of the 20th century thats up for argument I also think these great names would mean a lot more for INTEL Thanks.

Stuart Kerley is a must for developing the first Internet Banking service 11 years ago. Many of the suggestions have been excellent. I would like to add: Konrad Zuse - German computer scientist who was responsible for the first high level programming language in the immediate aftermath of the war Wilbur and Orville Wright - Inventors of the first succesful aeroplane.

Alexander Graham Bell - inventor of the telephone but ditto. Definitely not Zuckerbeg, Fanning, Roseberg, Branson or Dunstone. Tim Berners Lee for sure inventor of the Web - but not the Internet as some have suggested.

But yeah, rant over. Tim Berners Lee must be in the list. Oh, and I think Grace Murray Hopper has more right to be in the list than Mark Zuckerberg. Phillip Zimmerman The bloke who published PGP encryption software back in the early 's and thus opened the door for free public key encryption. What about the inventor of Java, Internet and People who drive open source in the community. This is what makes technology accessable globally.

Wright brothers - flight, although stretching the year limit international flight has revolutionised the world Guglielmo Marconi - radio etc. Despite this, I could only find 3 mentions of them in this forum. Most people havent heard of ARM, but own more than one product that uses thier technology. Being Discussed Now Logging out Not on the High Street 37 - the social year 36 Twitter, Iran and uksnow 25 Broadband Britain - how far down the league? Teaming up to bash Google?

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