Chips Off The Ole Block
Outstanding Black Computer
Internet & Digital Pioneers
Column: Did You Know…About Black People?(™)
by Pierre A. Clark, Founder, Creative Services Multimedia LLC
Founder/Convenor, Digital Excellence Consortium, Inc.
Managing Partner: NuFutures Development Ventures LLC
As we come to the conclusion of this Black History Month, we continue to rightly celebrate the achievements and contributions of black people in areas of life from sports and entertainment to culture, literature, science and many other areas. But there are areas to which we have and continue to make profound contributions that are not spotlighted as much but should be.
How many of you, for example, know about the profound connection of the creation, development and proliferation of the technology tools we use every day to the creative efforts and entrepreneurialism of black people?
Did you know that several of the largest tech companies in the world are owned by blacks and were/are developed by blacks?
Did you know that many of the technology tools and resources we depend on every day (Internet protocols, the ISA bus, graphics cards) were created and developed and perfected by black people?
Here are some capsule descriptions and references to black technology pioneers and black people of note, past and present.
Emmit McHenry: was the founder and President of Network Solutions, Inc. which was the first and at the time only Internet domain name registrar and created and pioneered many of the protocols used every day on the Internet - domain names or URLs - Universal Resource Locators, IP (Internet Protocol) Addresses, and DNS (Domain Name Servers) among others. McHenry’s company was a government contractor at the time and he continually struggled to keep his company funded. He eventually sold his company to Verisign who was able to turn it into a $21 billion enterprise.
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| Emmit McHenry Courtesy The Business Journals |
David Steward is the founder and majority owner of World Wide Technology, the 27th largest privately held company in the U. S. and the largest black-owned company in the country, which grosses $17 billion a year. David has a personal net worth of $7.6 billion in 2024, according to Forbes Magazine. World Wide Technology provides comprehensive IT services to thousands of companies nationwide and worldwide.
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| David Steward |
Philip Emeagwali Credited as the father of the Internet, Philip Emeagwali's greatest achievement, that warranted him the most praise, was The Connection Machine. The Connection Machine utilizes 65,000 computers linked in parallel to form the fastest computer on Earth. This computer can perform 3.1 billion calculations per second.
The first Nigerian to make it to top 10 people with highest IQ in the world. Philip Emeagwali has an IQ of 190. Philip Emeagwali was one of two winners of the 1989 Gordon Bell Prize.
Resource:
http://www.atlnightspots.com/a-black-man-named-philip-emeagwali-created-the-internet/
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| Philip Emeagwali - Courtesy Wikipedia |
