Linus Benedict Torvalds – (born December 28, 1969) is a Finnish American software engineer, who was the principal force behind the development of the Linux kernel. He later became the chief architect of the Linux kernel, and now acts as the project's coordinator. He also created the revision control system Git as well as the diving log software Subsurface. He was honored, along with Shinya Yamanaka, with the 2012 Millennium Technology Prize by the Technology Academy Finland "in recognition of his creation of a new open source operating system for computers leading to the widely used Linux kernel".

Paul Gardner Allen - (born January 21, 1953) is an American business magnate, investor and philanthropist, best known as the co-founder, with Bill Gates, of Microsoft Corporation. As of March 2013, he was estimated to be the 53rd-richest person in the world, with an estimated wealth of $15 billion. He is the founder and chairman of Vulcan Inc., which manages his various business and philanthropic efforts. Allen also has a multi-billion dollar investment portfolio including technology companies, real estate holdings, and stakes in other technology, media, and content companies. Allen also owns two professional sports teams, the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League (NFL), and the Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is also part-owner of the Seattle Sounders FC, which joined Major League Soccer (MLS) in 2009. Allen's memoir Idea Man: A Memoir by the Cofounder of Microsoft was released on April 19, 2011. The paperback version of Idea Man, which included a new epilogue, came out on October 30, 2012.

Steven Paul "Steve" Jobs - was an American entrepreneur, marketer, and inventor, who was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. Through Apple, he was widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution and for his influential career in the computer and consumer electronics fields, transforming "one industry after another, from computers and smartphones to music and movies". Jobs also co-founded and served as chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios; he became a member of the board of directors of The Walt Disney Company in 2006, when Disney acquired Pixar. Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of Xerox PARC's mouse-driven graphical user interface, which led to the creation of the Apple Lisa and, one year later, the Macintosh. He also played a role in introducing the LaserWriter, one of the first widely available laser printers, to the market.

Stephen Gary "Steve" Wozniak - known as Woz, is an American inventor, computer engineer and programmer who co-founded Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne. Wozniak single-handedly invented both the Apple I and Apple II computers in the 1970s. These computers contributed significantly to the microcomputer revolution.

William Henry "Bill" Gates III - is an American business magnate, investor, programmer, inventor and philanthropist. Gates is the former chief executive and current chairman of Microsoft, the world’s largest personal-computer software company, which he co-founded with Paul Allen. He is consistently ranked in the Forbes list of the world's wealthiest people and was the wealthiest overall from 1995 to 2009—excluding 2008, when he was ranked third; in 2011 he was the wealthiest American and the world's second wealthiest person. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires List, Gates is the world's richest person in 2013, a position that he last held on the list in 2007.

Sir Timothy John "Tim" Berners-Lee - OM, KBE, FRS, FREng, FRSA (born 8 June 1955), also known as "TimBL," is a British computer scientist, best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web. He made a proposal for an information management system in March 1989, and he implemented the first successful communication between a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) client and server via the Internet sometime around mid November. Berners-Lee is the director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which oversees the Web's continued development. He is also the founder of the World Wide Web Foundation, and is a senior researcher and holder of the Founders Chair at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). He is a director of the Web Science Research Initiative (WSRI), and a member of the advisory board of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence.

Vinton Gray "Vint" Cerf - is an American computer scientist, who is recognized as one of "the fathers of the Internet", sharing this title with American computer scientist Bob Kahn. His contributions have been acknowledged and lauded, repeatedly, with honorary degrees and awards that include the National Medal of Technology, the Turing Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and membership in the National Academy of Engineering.

Sergey Mikhaylovich Brin - is an American computer scientist and Internet entrepreneur who, with Larry Page, co-founded Google, one of the most profitable Internet companies. As of 2012, his personal wealth was estimated to be $20.3 billion. Together, Brin and Page own about 16 percent of the company.

Lawrence "Larry" Page is an American computer scientist and Internet entrepreneur who is the co-founder of Google, alongside Sergey Brin. On April 4, 2011, Page became the chief executive officer of Google and Eric Schmidt is his predecessor. As of 2013, Page's personal wealth is estimated to be US$23 billion, ranking him #20 on the Forbes 400 list of the 400 richest Americans.

Bjarne Stroustrup - is a Danish computer scientist, most notable for the creation and the development of the widely-used C++ programming language. He is currently Professor and holder of the College of Engineering Chair in Computer Science at Texas A&M University.

Eric Steven Raymond - often referred to as ESR, is an American computer programmer, author and open source software advocate. After the 1997 publication of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Raymond was for a number of years frequently quoted as an unofficial spokesman for the open source movement. He is also known for his work on the popular Roguelike game Nethack for which he wrote the Guidebook, in addition to being a member of the "Dev-Team". More recently, he is recognized in certain circles for his 1990 edit and later updates of the Jargon File, currently in print as the The New Hacker's Dictionary.

Richard Matthew Stallman - often known by his initials, RMS, is an American software freedom activist and computer programmer. He campaigns for the freedom to use, study, distribute and modify software; software that ensures these freedoms is termed free software. He is best known for launching the GNU Project, founding the Free Software Foundation, developing the GNU Compiler Collection and GNU Emacs, and writing the GNU General Public License. Stallman launched the GNU Project in September 1983 to create a Unix-like computer operating system composed entirely of free software. With this, he also launched the free software movement. He has been the GNU project's lead architect and organizer, and developed a number of pieces of widely used GNU software including, among others, the GNU Compiler Collection, the GNU Debugger and the GNU Emacs text editor. In October 1985 he founded the Free Software Foundation. Page is the inventor of PageRank, the foundation of Google's search ranking algorithm, and he and Brin own approximately 16 percent of Google's stock.

Lawrence Joseph "Larry" Ellison - is an American business magnate, co-founder and chief executive of Oracle Corporation, an enterprise software company. He is the fifth-wealthiest man in the world with an estimated worth of $34 billion including his ownership of Oracle stock.

Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie - was an American computer scientist who "helped shape the digital era." He created the C programming language and, with long-time colleague Ken Thompson, the Unix operating system. Ritchie and Thompson received the Turing Award from the ACM in 1983, the Hamming Medal from the IEEE in 1990 and the
National Medal of Technology from President Clinton in 1999. Ritchie was the head of Lucent Technologies System Software Research Department when he retired in 2007. He was the 'R' in K&R C and commonly known by his username dmr.

Marc Lowell Andreessen - is an American entrepreneur, investor, software engineer, and multi-millionaire. He is best known as co-author of Mosaic, the first widely used Web browser; as co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation; and as co-founder and general partner of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. He founded and later sold the software company Opsware to Hewlett-Packard. Andreessen is also a co-founder of Ning, a company that provides a platform for social networking websites. An innovator and creator, he is one of the few people who has pioneered a software category (Web browsers) used by more than a billion people and established several billion-dollar companies. He sits on the board of directors of Facebook, eBay, and HP, among others. A frequent keynote speaker and guest at Silicon Valley conferences, Andreessen is one of only six inductees in the World Wide Web Hall of Fame announced at the first international conference on the World Wide Web in 1994.

Mark Richard Shuttleworth - is a South African entrepreneur, and space tourist who became the first South African in space. Shuttleworth founded Canonical Ltd. and as of 2013, provides leadership for the Ubuntu operating system. He currently lives on the Isle of Man and holds dual citizenship of South Africa and the United Kingdom.