Charles Babbage conceptualized the first programmable computer in the 19th century and laid the foundations for modern computing even though his machines were never completed in his lifetime. Grace Hopper was a pioneer in computer programming and popularized the term "debugging". Alan Turing helped develop the first digital electronic computer and proposed the Turing Test for artificial intelligence during World War II at Bletchley Park.

1. Great People in IT

2. Charles Babbage (26 December 1791 -
18 October 1871)
Charles Babbage first came up with the
idea of a mechanical computer after
seeing how numerical tables calculated
by humans (called computers) had a
high-degree of error. He decided that by
creating a device for doing the same job,
the errors could be eliminated. The
difference engine was born: a machine
capable of calculating the values of
polynomial functions automatically.
Sadly, although funding was in place, the
difference engine was never completed.

3. Charles Babbage (26 December 1791 -
18 October 1871)
Not deterred, Babbage turned his
hand to the Difference Engine No. 2,
an improve calculating machine, and
the Analytical Engine, which was the
first programmable computer in
existence. He even drew up plans for
the first printer. Babbage died before
any of his designs could be built, but
his influence should not be
underestimated and his designs
inspired other people to work on
computers.

4. Charles Babbage (26 December 1791 -
18 October 1871)
His work has since been proved
viable. The Difference Engine No. 2
was constructed between 1989 and
1991 at the London Science
Museum, using 19th century
manufacturing tolerances: it worked
(and continues to work) perfectly,
performing calculations to 31 digits.
His printer was also constructed and
shown to work - proof of Babbage's
genius.

5. Charles Babbage (26 December 1791 -
18 October 1871)
Regardless of the fact that his
computer was never built while he
was alive, Babbage opened the
floodgates to a new world of
computing machines. Without
him, we may not have the modern
computers we have today.

6. Grace Hopper
Grace Murray Hopper (December 9, 1906 – January
1, 1992) was an American computer scientist and
United States Navy Rear Admiral. A pioneer in the
field, she was one of the first programmers of the
Harvard Mark I computer, and developed the first
compiler for a computer programming language. She
conceptualized the idea of machine-independent
programming languages, which led to the
development of COBOL, one of the first modern
programming languages. She is credited with
popularizing the term "debugging" for fixing
computer glitches (inspired by an actual moth
removed from the computer).

7. Alan Turing (23 June 1912 - 7 June
1954)
Alan Turing was principally a
mathematician, most famous for
helping break the German's Enigma
code during World War II at Bletchley
Park. It was here, though, that Turing
turned to computers to help break
codes faster, saving millions of lives in
the process and shortening the
length of the war.

8. Alan Turing (23 June 1912 - 7 June
1954)
Turing created was the Bombe: an
electromechanical device devised to
help the code-breakers device the
key of the day the German's were
using on their Enigma machines. The
Bombe operators could quickly set up
the machine and let it calculate
possible Enigma settings, which could
then be verified by hand.

9. Alan Turing (23 June 1912 - 7 June
1954)
After the war Turing was an
influential figure and came up with
the Turing Test: a method by which to
test artificial intelligence. Prosecuted
for homesexual acts, Turing
committed suicide in 1954, and we'll
never know the full extent of where
his fierce intellect could have led us.

10. William "Willy" A. Higinbotham (1910 – 1994)
• An American physicist. A member of
the team that developed the first
nuclear bomb, he later became a
leader in the nonproliferation
movement. He also has a place in
the history of video games for his
1958 creation of Tennis for Two, the
first interactive analog computer
game and one of the first electronic
games to use a graphical display.

11. Tommy Flowers
Another member of the Bletchley
Park World War II team, Tommy
Flowers was instrumental in
building the world's first electronic
computer: Colossus. The principle
purpose of the machine was to
break the Lorenz Cipher, used by
high-level Germans, including
Adolf Hitler.

12. Tommy Flowers
Built using valves, the computer was five
times faster and more flexible than its
predecessor, Heath Robinson. Colossus
was the first programmable, digital,
computer and revolutionary at the time.
It's success in code breaking was
demonstrated when Eisenhower was
handed a decrypt showing that Hitler
wasn't going to move more troops into
Normandy and the D-Day landings stood
a high-chance of success.

13. Douglas Engelbart (30 January 1925)
He created the mouse (then a wooden
shell with two metal wheels in it), still
the de facto way that we interact with
computers today. He and his team also
created bit-mapped screens, hypertext
and some precursors to the graphical
user interface (GUI).
The research started here allowed
Xerox to continue development and
come up with the basis of the
windowed-operating system that we
all use today.

14. Steve Jobs (24 February 1955)
In 1976 Steve Jobs, along with Stephen
Wozniak and Ronald Wayne founded
Apple. Although the company had
early success with the Apple and, in
particular, Apple II computers, it was
the original Macintosh (1984) that
changed things: it was the first
computer to have a graphical user
interface and mouse rather than a
command line interface

15. Philip Don Estridge (23 June 1937 - 2 August 1985)
Philip Don Estridge, known as Don Estridge, led the
development of the IBM Personal Computer (PC).
The IBM PC was designed as a way for the company
to get into the small computer market, dominated
at the time by Commodore, Atari and Apple. The
revolutionary part about the computer was that it
was designed by using off-the-shelf parts available
from OEMs, rather than creating brand-new
technology.
Even more surprising for the time was that IBM
decided to use an open architecture, so that other
manufacturers could produce and sell peripherals
without having to purchase a license.

16. Gordon Moore (3 January 1929)
As the founder of Intel, Moore
has helped shape the modern
world and create the base
technology platform that the
majority of the world uses,
whether its Linux, Windows or
Mac OS X.

17. Nolan Key Bushnell (born February 5, 1943)
An American engineer and
entrepreneur who founded both Atari,
Inc.

18. Bill Gates (28 October 1955)
Best known for founding Microsoft - a name
that's synonymous with the personal computer
market.
Microsoft didn't actually invent DOS (Tim
Paterson of Seattle Computer Products) did, the
company has based its fortunes on it, exclusively
licensing the OS and later buying it outright to
service IBM's PC. From DOS, Microsoft went on
to create Windows - the most successful
operating system ever, and used by the majority
of people the world over.

19. Tim Berners-Lee (8 June 1955)
It was in 1989 when he returned to CERN
that he saw an opportunity to link hypertext
to the internet (itself only actually a way of
connecting computer networks across the
globe) and the World Wide Web was born.
He designed and built the first web browser,
created the first web server and, in short,
changed the entire world as we know it.
We're now so reliant on the internet that it's
impossible to imagine life without the world
wide web.