Grace Murray Hopper Award facts for kids
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The Grace Murray Hopper Award is a special prize given to computer experts. It's named after Grace Hopper, who was a very important computer pioneer and a Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy. The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has given out this award since 1971.
This award goes to a computer professional who has made a single, big contribution to technology or service in the computer world. The amazing part is, they have to have done this by the age of 35 or younger! It celebrates young talent and big ideas in computing.
Who Was Grace Hopper?
Grace Hopper was a brilliant American computer scientist and a Navy officer. She was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer. She also helped create the first compiler, which translates computer code into a language computers can understand. She even helped develop COBOL, one of the first modern computer programming languages. Grace Hopper was known for her amazing work and for being a visionary in the early days of computing. She even popularized the term "debugging" when she found a real moth stuck in a computer!
Amazing Young Computer Scientists
Many talented people have received the Grace Murray Hopper Award. These individuals made important discoveries or created new technologies that changed how we use computers. They achieved these big things at a young age, showing incredible skill and creativity.
Here are a few examples of people who have won this award:
- Donald Knuth (1971): He is famous for his books on computer programming, which are like encyclopedias for computer science.
- Ray Kurzweil (1978): He is known for his work in artificial intelligence and predicting the future of technology.
- Steve Wozniak (1979): He co-founded Apple Inc. and designed the Apple I and Apple II computers, which helped start the personal computer revolution.
- Robert M. Metcalfe (1980): He invented Ethernet, which is how many computers connect to networks and the internet today.
- Daniel S. Bricklin (1981): He co-created VisiCalc, one of the first spreadsheet programs, which was a huge step for personal computers in business.
- William "Bill" Joy (1986): He was a co-founder of Sun Microsystems and helped develop important software like UNIX and Java.
- Richard Stallman (1990): He started the free software movement and created important software like GNU Emacs.
- Bjarne Stroustrup (1993): He created the C++ programming language, which is used in many different types of software and systems.
- Shafrira Goldwasser (1996): She is a leading expert in cryptography (making codes secure) and computational complexity.
- Luis von Ahn (2011): He is known for creating reCAPTCHA and Duolingo, which help digitize books and teach languages.
These are just some of the many brilliant minds recognized by this award. Each recipient has pushed the boundaries of what computers can do, making our digital world what it is today.
See also
In Spanish: Premio Grace Murray Hopper para niños
- List of computer-related awards
- List of computer science awards
