Grace Murray Hopper

Born in 1906, Grace was a pioneer of computer technology, recognising the potential of military computers for commercial use.

During a career in the US Navy while following a Maths degree at university, she developed UNIVAC I, the first commercial electronic computer, and designed the programming language COBOL. She said that her greatest contribution to the IT industry was "all the young people I've trained".

Grace is credited with inventing the term "bug" to describe a technical computing hitch after a moth got into one of her prototype computers and caused it to malfunction. The original "bug" still exists, preserved in her notes on the incident.