The Computer History Museum (CHM), the world’s leading institution exploring the history of computing and its transformational impact on society, today proudly announced its 2017 Fellow Award honorees:
This year’s Fellow Awards – presented by Accenture for the fourth year – will take place Friday, April 28, 2017, and is set to recognize one of the Museum’s most diverse classes in recent history. Hamilton, recipient of a 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom, wrote code that put astronauts on the Moon. Cooper pioneered Visual BASIC and changed the face of personal computing. Moler’s MATLAB brought numerical computing to the masses. And, with ARPANET, Roberts made enormous contributions to the globally networked world we find so indispensable today.
During the gala ceremony, the Museum will also pay special tribute to 2013 Fellow Award Honorees Robert Taylor and Harry Huskey, who passed away earlier this year. Taylor oversaw or funded many key developments in computing over the last 55 years: the mouse and web-like online systems at NASA and ARPA; the ARPANET; and the defining features of the modern PC at Xerox PARC, including the Alto personal computer, internetworking, and Ethernet. Huskey worked with computing legend Alan Turing on the Pilot ACE machine, developed the SWAC and Bendix G-15 computers, and spent much of his life as an educator, most recently at UC Santa Cruz.
The 2017 Fellow Awards mark the 30th anniversary of the Museum’s prestigious program, which has recognized such esteemed honorees as Frances Allen, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Ed Catmull, Vint Cerf, Morris Chang, Lynn Conway, Doug Engelbart, Bjarne Stroustrup, Ken Olsen, and Steve Wozniak.
Since its inception in 1987 when the Museum inducted its first Fellow, computer scientist and US Navy Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, the Fellow Awards at the Computer History Museum have honored distinguished individuals and pioneering teams whose contributions have forever transformed our world. Attended by technology leaders, innovators, and visionaries from around world, the Fellow Awards are a time-honored tradition that highlight and preserve the stories of each honoree, advancing the world’s collective history and inspiring future generations.
Fellow nominations are open to the public and reflect a diverse range of viewpoints and areas of computing. Final selections are made by a panel of historians, researchers, industry leaders, Museum staff and past Museum Fellows.
The Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, is a nonprofit organization with a four-decade history as the world’s leading institution exploring the history of computing and its ongoing impact on society. The Museum is dedicated to the preservation and celebration of computer history and is home to the largest international collection of computing artifacts in the world, encompassing computer hardware, software, documentation, ephemera, photographs, and moving images. The Museum brings computer history to life through large-scale exhibits, an acclaimed speaker series, a dynamic website, docent-led tours, and an award-winning education program. The Museum’s signature exhibition is “Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing,” described by USA Today as “the Valley’s answer to the Smithsonian.” “Make Software: Change the World,” opened in 2017, illustrates the impact of software on the world through the stories of seven iconic and widely used applications. Other current exhibits include the “Where To? A History of Autonomous Vehicles,” “Thinking Big: Ada, Countess of Lovelace,” “The Trillion-Dollar Startup,” and demonstration labs featuring fully restored and working models of the DEC PDP-1 and the IBM 1401 systems. For more information and updates, visit computerhistory.org
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