African-American Inventors

DR. Philip Emeagwali

Philip Emeagwali is not your typical genius. He was born in 1957 in Nigeria. His school experience was much the same as with many other native African children. He even had to drop out of school at the age of 14 because his father could not pay his school fees. During his few early years in school, Philip showed a proficiency in mathematics. His father encouraged him to continue his education and even tried to tutor him until Philip "knew more than he did."

After dropping out of high school Philip immersed himself in the public library, reading and studying such subjects as college-level mathematics, physics chemistry and English. When he was 17, he received a scholarship to Oregon State University. He arrived at the University in 1974 and has since earned four other degrees - a Ph.D. in Scientific Computing from the University of Michigan along with two Masters Degrees from the George Washington University.

With the title, "Bill Gates of Africa", it is easy to see how much of an impact his intellect has had on the computing industry.  In 1989, the computer system he built became the first system to perform 3.1 billion calculations per second.  This record even surpassed the expensive super computers in the U. S.  He used his computer to help scientists understand how oil flowed underground. His invention garnered him the prestigious Gordon Bell Prize in the      U. S.  This is considered to be the Nobel Prize of computing.

Emeagwali's computer, "The Connection Machine" pictured above, was developed in 1986, and it was a full three years of poor success with the computer until he hit pay dirt.  Although skeptics doubted even minimal gains, Emeagwali never gave up on his "baby."  The breakthrough was that Emeagwali was able to link 65,536 processors, each one equal to a desk top computer, across the internet to the Connection Machine.  He had a great analogy:

"Just picture the conventional supercomputer, costing $30m each, as eight oxen pulling a cart and the Connection Machine as about 65,000 chickens pulling the same cart. The old thinking is that the oxen will do a better job, but if the chickens coordinate their efforts, they'll do a better job than the oxen. That's what my 65,536 small computers achieved: 3.1 billion calculations per second".

Emeagwali's theory proved to be revolutionary in the world of computers.  The above is a diagram of how he linked up all of the computers.  The red dots represent a processor and the red lines represent the path of the information sent.