In 2012, visionary Italian computer scientist Silvio Micali won the Turing Award, which is referred to as “the Nobel Prize of Computing.” Micali, who has been a member of the MIT faculty since 1983, is also the founder of Algorand, one of the fastest-growing cryptocurrencies in the market…
Born in 1942, Louis V. Gerstner Jr. is best known for serving as IBM Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; his nine-year tenure is often used as a case study in corporate leadership. When Gerstner took the reins of IBM in 1993, the tech giant was looking at either bankruptcy or breakup…
John Steinbeck is one of the most revered American literary figures and the author of numerous “classic” books that are routinely assigned in high school and college classrooms. Born in 1902, Steinbeck left college and worked as a manual laborer while trying to learn the craft of writing. Extremely prolific, he authored more than 30 books, including 16 novels, six non-fiction books, and two collections of short stories…
Garry Trudeau may not be a household name, but during the past 50 years his groundbreaking comic strip “Doonesbury” has become one of the most widely syndicated cartoons ever. Part of Doonesbury’s success stems from its sophisticated reflection of the U.S. political and cultural landscape…
If you have ever experienced a debilitating hangover from too much Jägermeister, then chances are you can thank a man named Sidney Frank. Born in 1919, Frank’s life resembled something torn from the pages of an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel…
Nobel-winning author Saul Bellow (1915-2005) was best known for writing novels that used the urban landscape to explore individualism, intellectualism, the disorienting nature of modern civilization, and the potential for human awakening. Born in Quebec, Canada, Bellow precociously learned Hebrew at the age of four, and at nine moved to Chicago…
Robin Chase is the visionary mind behind Zipcar, the largest carsharing company in the world. Utilizing a wireless key, GPS location, and wifi billing, members can pick up Zipcars at various locations whenever they need one…
Born in 1958, Kurt Akeley is an award-winning American computer graphics engineer. A pioneer in the field of graphics, Akeley co-founded Silicon Graphics (later known as SGI) in 1982. During his 19 years there, Akeley was instrumental in developing several high-end graphics products, including GTX, VGX, and RealityEngine…
A Jewish refugee who fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s, Henry Kissinger rose to become one of the great American statesmen and policymakers of the 20th century. For a long period during the 1970s, he was the U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Adviser, using his formidable negotiating skills to advance the country’s interest on the global scene…
Born in 1803, Ralph Waldo Emerson began his career as a Unitarian minister and later achieved worldwide recognition as a lecturer and writer. Notably, Emerson was the central figure in American Transcendentalism—a movement that questioned the rules of society while stressing the importance of nature and individual freedom…
