ICT Innovators 

Dr. Grace Hopper 

1906–1992

Dr Grace Hopper was a mathematician and rear admiral in the US Navy. 
She began her career as a mathematics professor at Vassar College before 
joining the Navy in 1943. She was assigned to a computational project in 1944 
where she worked on Mark I, the first large-scale automatic calculator which 
would go on to be a precursor to modern computers.

She helped create ways to program computers using plain English, including 
COBOL (COmmon Business-Oriented Language), a computer code many business 
operations still rely on today.

Retired in 1986 at 79 years, 
as the oldest officer on 
active duty in the US Navy

Named the 
first computer science 
‘Man of the Year’ by the Data 
Processing Management 
Association in 1969

Developed one of the 
first programming 
languages that understood 
English commands

Awarded the National Medal 
of Technology in 1991 and the 
Presidential Medal of Freedom 
posthumously in 2016

Pioneer of Computer Programming

I’ve always been more 
interested in the future than in 
the past.

Grace Hopper

Some day, on the corporate 
balance sheet, there will 
be an entry which reads, 
‘Information’, for in most 
cases, the information is more 
valuable than the hardware 
which processes it.

Ada Lovelace

Encyclopædia Britannica. (2019). Grace Hopper. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Grace-Hopper 
Images: Captain Grace Hopper, ca 1975. [Image] (1975). Retrieved from https://www.si.edu/spotlight/women-mathematicians/grace-hopper-the-navy-and-computers Vectors from www.freepik.com