Peter Denning
Peter Denning, a well-known academic for fifty years, is often regarded as a godfather of computer science. He built his first computer in high school from pinball machine parts, winning grand prize in the science fair. At MIT he became an expert in the design of the first “computer utility”, a forerunner of today’s “cloud”. A pioneer with virtual memory, he invented the working set model, the basis of high speed memory management in all major computers and operating systems. He has been a major figure in shaping the computer science curriculum. After years of puzzling over why most inventors are not innovators, he co-authored The Innovator’s Way, a new framework for understanding innovation and learning its skill set. He is a past president of the Association for Computing Machinery and editor-in-chief of its flagship publication. He has written 10 books and over 400 technical papers. He received 26 awards for technical and educational contributions to computing.
