Ken Thompson

Ken Thompson, co-creator of the Unix operating system. While working at bell labs, Thompson designed and implemented the Unix operating system which revolutionized the computing industry. He also created of the B programming language (a precursor to C) as well as UTF-8 encoding which made it possible for computers to display and exchange data in multiple languages. Later in his careeer he co-created of Go programming language. Widely regarded as one of the greatest computer programmers of all time, Thompson is the receipient of numerous awards including the National Medal of Technology, the Japan Prize and the Turing Award.