Podcast in English
Text size
Bulgarian National Radio © 2024 All Rights Reserved

120 years since the birth of the inventor of the computer

President Radev to award winners of the John Atanasoff Presidential Award

Atanasoff was of Bulgarian origin

John Vincent Atanasoff (1903 – 1995) inventor of the Atanasoff–Berry Computer.
Photo: Archive

At a special ceremony at the Presidential Palace today, Head of State Rumen Radev will present awards to the winners of the John Atanasov Presidential Award for 2023. The award ceremony will be held on the day marking the 120th anniversary of the birth of the famous inventor of Bulgarian origin and creator of the first electronic computer with regenerative memory. The awards will be presented for the 21st time to pupils, students and young Bulgarian scientists who have shown outstanding results in the field of computer science.

John Vincent Atanasoff was born on October 4, 1903 near Hamilton, New York. His father, Ivan Atanasov, was a Bulgarian immigrant born in the village of Boyadzhik, Yambol region, then in the Ottoman Empire. Ivan's parents died in 1876, at the height of the April Uprising, so in 1889, at the age of 13, he emigrated to America with his uncle. He met John's Iva Lucena Purdy, an English teacher from upstate New York, and they got married in in 1900, following John’s graduation from Colgate College with a degree in philosophy.

Ivan and Lucena's son John became interested in mathematics and logarithms at an early age. He was later recognized as the inventor of the computer. More information on the subject can be found here.



Последвайте ни и в Google News Showcase, за да научите най-важното от деня!
Listen to the daily news from Bulgaria presented in "Bulgaria Today" podcast, available in Spotify.

More from category

Heavy traffic of truck near Danube Bridge at the border with Romania

The traffic of trucks in the area of the Danube Bridge at the border with Romania is heavy.  This situation is expected to continue over the weekend as the trucks that were waiting at the Kapitan Andreevo crossing at the Bulgarian-Turkish border for..

published on 11/22/24 3:36 PM

Traffic to the Kapitan Andreevo border crossing between Bulgaria and Turkey is normalised

The truck traffic on the Maritsa highway to the Kapitan Andreevo border crossing at the Bulgarian-Turkish border is now normalized. "As of this morning, there are no more queues of trucks standing on the roadway waiting to cross the border," assured..

published on 11/22/24 3:04 PM

European Public Prosecutor's Office conducts searches in four Bulgarian cities for alleged fraud with EU funds

At the request of the European Public Prosecutor's Office, searches have been carried out in Sofia, Burgas, Petrich and Rila in connection with an investigation into alleged fraud with EU funds in the restoration of a church. In 2017, a public tender..

published on 11/22/24 1:42 PM