African American Innovators in Tech | Mark E Dean

Mark E Dean is one of the most famous African-American inventors that shaped modern computing. His most prominent and most recent innovation is the production of the first 1-Gigahertz chip. This chip is made up of a million transistors and has endless potential.

Dean has always been a computer genius. In fact, as a high school student, he built his own computer, amplifier, and radio. He pursued his interest and obtained a B.Sc in electrical engineering from the University of Tennessee. He also bagged a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Florida Atlantic University and Stanford, respectively.

In 1980, Mark E Dean landed a job at IBM, and he was a figurehead in the team that invented the Personal Computer (PC). He developed the color P C monitor. Along with a colleague, he built a system that made it possible to connect printers and monitors directly to a computer.  So far, he has received over twenty patents including three of IBM’s nine PC patents.

Mark E Dean has received many awards throughout his career. He received the honor as an IBM Fellow in 1996, and he is the first African-American to receive it. Also, in 1997, he was inaugurated into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.