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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.

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Radio Bulgaria News    120th anniversary computor inventor John Atanasov Presidential Award for 2023 Rumen Radev

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