What can a man who has lived long enough to have seen the computer go from its invention by Charles Babbage in the late 1800s to its domination of information processing today? I am talking about Tom Keane, an Irish computer scientist who is an early pioneer of computers, a distinguished research professor at MIT, and co-founder of Digital Equipment Corporation.
He is an Irish immigrant whose parents escaped the Irish Potato Famine by escaping to America just in time. After settling in Massachusetts, they became deeply involved with their new community and even named their son Thomas Francis after two famous Saint Francis (of Assisi) (Mspoweruser).
This Saint Francis would become one of the first computers and is presented as such in his biography. He is a very interesting man with a vast appetite for information. This talk would be an excellent introduction to Tom Keane’s book and great for younger fans who may not have read it. Its main concern and topics are the leading of cloud services development.
Cloud services engineer Tom Keane was born in the small Irish village of Ballymoney, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. After his family fled from the Great Famine of the 1840s, he pursued higher education in America, where he earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He then studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
After completing his undergraduate studies, Keane pursued a doctorate in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan. He lectured on digital computers and provided mathematical proof of the proposed Babbage Engine. Tom Keane was awarded a doctorate for his thesis, “A Mathematical Proof of the Babbage Engine.” He continued to teach and research at MIT until moving to Silicon Valley, California, to be closer to his family.