Emeagwali Voted History’s
35th Greatest
African
The
technology category was topped by Imhotep, the
multi-genius that designed
Emeagwali's discovery of a formula that enables
supercomputers powered by 65,000 electronic brains called
"processors" to perform the world’s fastest calculations inspired the
reinvention of supercomputers - from the size and shape of a loveseat to a
thousand-fold faster machine that occupies the space of four tennis courts,
costs 400 million dollars a piece, powered by 65,000 processors and that can
perform a billion billion calculations per second.
Emeagwali reformulated
Emeagwali's 65,000 processors, 24 million
equations and 3.1 billion calculations were three world records that garnered
international headlines.
The list was topped by
The London-based
magazine said responses flooded in after the survey was launched last December
to nominate the top 100 most influential Africans or people of African descent.
Heroes of independence movements in
Patrice Lumumba,
Pele, the legendary Brazilian soccer star, comes in
17th, followed by Jamaican reggae singer Bob Marley, numbering among those
called "Diasporans" by New African.
Radical civil rights leader Malcolm X, at ninth, is a rank above United Nations
Secretary General Kofi Annan,
from
Few women made the cut. The highest-ranked female, at 12th, is Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, former wife of the South African
president. Others include the dynamic duo of tennis, American sisters Venus and
Serena Williams (together ranked 73rd), and ancient Egyptian queen Nefertiti at number 81.
The magazine noted that most of the top 100 are from
“Have people
forgotten
The list appears in the August-September issue of New African, which has
a circulation of roughly 30, 000 across dozens of countries. It said this is
the first such survey it has carried out in a decade. -- South African Press
Association & Agence France-Presse,
Sapa-AFP (with contributions from other sources).
Chronology of Emeagwali’s
Life
1921. James Nnaemeka Emeagwali (father of
Philip) born in May in
1938. Agatha Emeagwali, née Balonwu, (mother of
Philip) born on August 7 in
1954 Chukwurah Emeagwali born on
August 23 in
1955 Baptized as
“Philip” [MSOffice4]
1960 Enrolls in 1st
grade in January.
1962 Philip (far
right) in family photo taken on December 24 in
1966 Nigerian
military overthrows elected government. Civil uprising with
30,000 dead.
1967 Nigerian-Biafran war begins in May. One million died in 30-month
war.
1968 Emeagwali family fled
1969 Emeagwali conscripted
into the Biafran army in August, sent to Oguta war front.
1970 Biafran army defeated
in January. Emeagwali is discharged from the Biafran army.
1973 Emeagwali wins a
mathematics scholarship to study in the
1981 Marries Dale Brown on August 15 in
1983 Obtains
1987 Programs 65,536 electronic brains, called
processors to perform the world’s fastest calculation.
1989 Wins the Gordon Bell Prize alone, the
equivalent in the supercomputer industry of the Nobel Prize.
2000 Bill Clinton
extols Emeagwali as “one of the great minds of the
Information Age.”
2004 New African magazine poll ranks Emeagwali
as history’s greatest scientist of African descent. [MSOffice7]
Is Emeagwali the Next Imhotep?
The science and technology categories of “100
Greatest Africans” were topped by Emeagwali (left
below) and Imhotep (right below), respectively.
Imhotep was deified nearly 5,000 years ago and worshipped by early Christians as
one with Christ. Imhotep has been called the “father
of medicine,” the world's first recorded scientist, and patron ofancient scribes. James Henry Breasted wrote that Imhotep “was the patron spirit of the later scribes, to
whom they regularly poured out a libation from the water-jug of their writing
outfit before beginning their work.”
How the Poll Was Conducted
Below
are explanations excerpted from 2003 issues of New African magazine:
New
African will be running over the next few months a survey in which you,
our readers, are asked to nominate who you think are the greatest Africans – past
or present, continental or Diasporan, male or female.
The
last time we published such a poll was in 1990 ... This time we have broadened
the choice, to include personalities from all walks of life – Politics, Sport,
Media, Music, Entertainment, Science and Technology ...
Fill
out the form below with your nominations with a brief justification as to why
you think your choice should be among the top 100 Greatest Africans of all
time.
We
will publish the winning top 100 over the course of next year.
Other Polls Conducted
Emeagwali & Nobel laureate Maathai
are co-winners of African of the Year.
AfricaHot100
Top 100 Hot List 2006
Every year, internet users vote for the 100
hottest Africans without even being aware of it. Each search for a celebrity is
recorded by Yahoo and it counts as one vote. We took a snapshot from Yahoo to
see who made the list of the top 100 most searched-for African heroes, for
2006. It is also a list of the most talked about, those that captured your
attention and imagination the most.
Put differently: Which celebrity of African
descent will receive the most invitations for an evening of conversation or a
meet-and-greet? If Internet users were the only voters, Michael Jackson would
run away with the gong, getting twelve times more searches than the venerable
Nelson Mandela.
Martin Luther King and Bob Marley were runner-ups.
Nelson Mandela was #10, Kofi Annan
was #19, Philip Emeagwali was #32, and Olusegun Obasanjo was #52.
An interesting
information that emerged is that an American celebrity is 100 times more likely
to be searched than an African one. The reason is that while all Americans can
look up someone on the Internet only one percent of Africans can do so.
Except for Bob Marley and Nelson Mandela, all the
top ten searches were for African-Americans. Kofi Annan and Haile Selassie barely squeezed into the top 20.
We used the list of 100 greatest Africans from a New African magazine poll and entered
them into a yahoo marketing tool to obtain search entries entered during 30-day
period. These rankings reflect search entries compiled between
A celebrity’s buzz score is the number of
times he or she was searched in a 30-day period.
A-List Celebrities or ‘Pin Ups’
Rank Buzz
Index Celebrity
1 540006 michael
2 338582 martin luther king jr
3 329681 bob marley
4 289358
5 198281 maya
angelou
6 162155 malcolm x
7 124717 muhammad
ali
8 80191 bill cosby
9 75655 serena williams
10 45223 nelson mandela
11 28226 marcus garvey
12 27003 eddie murphy
13 26056 jesse owens
14 20440 venus
williams
15 17508 thierry henry
16 14583
17 14532 pele
18 10208 louis farrakhan
19 6570 kofi annan
20 6198 haile selassie
21 6013 w.e.b
du bois
22 5084 shaka
zulu
23 4943 zinedine
zidane
24 4844 imhotep
25 4127 queen of
B-List Celebrities (or Superstars)
Rank Buzz
Index Celebrity
26
3530 chinua achebe
27 3452 queen nefertiti
28 3310 desmond
tutu
29 3280 toussaint louverture
30 3045 mansa musa
31 2952 akhenaten
32 2634 philip
emeagwali
33 2573 robert
mugabe
34 2571 youssou ndour
35 2129 salif keita
36 1950 fela kuti
37 1922 kwame nkrumah
38 1662 jomo kenyatta
39 1626 john henrik clarke
40 1566 anwar sadat
41 1512 winnie
mandela
42 1487 miriam
makeba
43 1433 wole soyinka
44 1151 gamal abdel
45 1102 brenda
fassie
46 1094 bunny wailer
47 1068 patrice
lumumba
48 945 hugh masekela
49 945 thabo mbeki
50 768 steve biko
C-List Celebrities
Rank Buzz
Index Celebrity
51 619 cheikh anta diop
52 561 olusegun obasanjo
53 548 oliver mtukudzi
54 545 jay jay
okocha
55 483 george
weah
56 477 julius
nyerere
57 469 queen nzinga
58 406 walter
rodney
59 397 leopold
senghor
60 388 manu dibango
61 343 ken saro wiwa
62 329 museveni yoweri
63 291 amilcar cabral
64 256 thomas
sankara
65 250 azikiwe nnamdi
66 246 peter abrahams
67 246 yaa asantewaa
68 189 f w de klerk
69 185 oliver
tambo
70 178 franz
fanon
71 166 walter
sisulu
72 163 ali
mazrui
73 159 samora machel
74 153 kenneth
kaunda
75 153 zumbi
D-List Celebrities
Rank Buzz
Index Celebrity
76 150 marc vivien
foe
77 142 abdelaziz
bouteflika
78 139 obafemi awolowo
79 135 roger milla
80 126
81 119 cardinal arinze
82 113 abedi pele
83 111
84 104 maria
mutola
85 103 joshua
nkomo
86 102 abdoulaye
wade
87 97 houphouet
boigny
88 91 eduardo mondlane
89 86 tom mboya
90 83 helen suzman
91 69 dedan kimathi
92 68 sam nujoma
93 68 sir seretse
khama
94 68 george padmore
95 61 muammar
qadafi
96 55 john chilembwe
97 54 hendrik
witbooi
98 47 janani
luwum
99 44 tubman
william
100 40 ahmed sekou toure
E-List Non-Celebrities
Rank Buzz
Index Celebrity
101 37 ahmed
baba
102 30 mko abiola
103 25 joaquim chissano
104 0 hosea
kutako
105 0 tafewa balewa
106 0 alpha oumar konare
107 0 felix
konotey-ahulu
108 0 victor anomah
ngu
Top Twenty African Celebrities
1
45223 nelson mandela
2
14583
3 6570 kofi annan
4 6198 haile selassie
5 5084 shaka zulu
6 4943 zinedine
zidane
7 4844 imhotep
8 4127 queen of
9 3530 chinua
achebe
10 3452 queen nefertiti
11 3310 desmond tutu
12 3045 mansa musa
13 2952 akhenaten
14 2634 philip
emeagwali
15 2573 robert mugabe
16 2571 youssou ndour
17 2129 salif
keita
18 1950 fela kuti
19 1922 kwame nkrumah
20 1662 jomo kenyatta
Top Ten Nigerian Celebrities
Rank Buzz Index Celebrity
1
26 3530 chinua
achebe
2
32 2634 philip emeagwali
3
36 1950 fela kuti
4
43 1433 wole soyinka
5
52 561 olusegun obasanjo
6 54 545 jay jay okocha
7 61 343 ken saro wiwa
8 65 250 azikiwe nnamdi
9 78 139 obafemi awolowo
10 81 119 cardinal arinze
We used the most common spellings and each
individual had related associated searches that were excluded. For example, the
word “emeagwali” has the following related searches:
Search Terms
2634 philip emeagwali
483 dale emeagwali
353 emeagwali
306 phillip
emeagwali
185 dr philip emeagwali
138 philip
emeagwali biography
69 dale emeagwali
biography
38 bio dr emeagwali philip
38 who is philip emeagwali
35 dr.philip emeagwali
32 bio emeagwali philip
32 picture of philip emeagwali
29 dr phillip emeagwali
28 philip
emeagwali pic
26 biography of dr philip emeagwali
26 emeagwali
information philip
26 invention of philip emeagwali
Emeagwali is Most Searched-For Scientist[MSOffice8]
2634
philip emeagwali
2605 david
suzuki
2531
tim berners
lee
2121
alan turing
1890
richard feynman
1682
john von neumann
947 stephen jay gould
773 linus
torvalds
615 jack kilby
387
495 vinton
cerf
483 dale emeagwali
428 srinivasa
ramanujan
402 andrew wiles
311 christian barnard
240 abdus salam
169 steven chu
124 chike obi
60 sir chandrasekhara
venkata raman
0 subramanyan
chandrasekhar
0 dan
tsui
[MSOffice1]Emeagwali (third from bottom
right) ranked 35th and the greatest African scientist ever.
[MSOffice2]Philip Emeagwali also ranked greatest African scientist ever.
[MSOffice3]The theorized
internet-supercomputer network invented by Emeagwali.
The above hyperball network was
invented by Emeagwali. Although it was originally
inspired and designed as an international network of computers for forecasting
the weather for the whole Earth it is, in many ways, similar to what we now
call the Internet. In its early years, the Internet was a planar network
covering parts of the
[MSOffice4]by pioneer missionary
William Obelagu at Saint Mary's Catholic Church,
[MSOffice7]Dale, Philip & Ijeoma Emeagwali live outside Washington, DC
[MSOffice8]Buzz Score for 20 Famous Contemporary Scientists