Young Nigerian man who dropped out of high school finally wins big, invents first supercomputer in the World
By creating the world’s first supercomputer, a young Nigerian guy named Philip Emeagwali, who had earlier dropped out of high school, finally succeeds.
Philip Emeagwali is a computer scientist, geologist, and engineer. According to the Black History website, he has been making history since 1989, when he was awarded the Gordon Bell Prize for the formula he created for the operation of a Connection Machine.
At the age of 14, Phillip left school because his father was unable to continue covering his tuition. However, his father continued teaching him at home, and every day Phillip completed mental exercises such as tackling 100 arithmetic problems in one hour.
Philip would spend the majority of his day at the public library since he was unable to go to school. He read every book that was suitable for his age before progressing to college-level readings and learning English, chemistry, physics, and mathematics.
When Philip had learned all he could from the library, he applied to take the General Certificate of Education exam which he passed. Having passed the high school equivalency exam, he applied to universities and colleges in both the United States and Europe.
Fortunately for him, he was offered not just admission but a full scholarship at Oregon State University, United States at the age of 17. Phillip graduated from the university with a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics.
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- After failing math in high school, a young man eventually receives first-class math grades and graduates with an exceptional 4.63/5.00 CGPA.
- Despite earning a perfect high school grade, a poor boy who cannot afford a university education is given a five-year scholarship by Nigerian artist David Adeleke.
- The bright youngster receives a bachelor’s degree at age 13, a master’s degree at age 14, and a PhD at age 18.
After this, he proceeded to George Washington University where he earned a master’s degree in Environmental Engineering. Phillip also holds a Master’s Degree in Applied Mathematics from the University of Maryland and another master’s in Ocean, Coastal, and Marine Engineering from George Washington University.
In 1987, Philip was admitted into the University of Michigan’s Civil Engineering doctoral program where his study focused on how to mimic the identification of oil reservoirs using a supercomputer.
Through his study, he located the Connection Machine at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. With the machine, Phillip constructed a program that solved a 350-year-old packing problem considered one of the greatest unsolved maths problems.
The Connection Machine was the world’s first supercomputer that utilized 65,000 computers linked in parallel to form the fastest computer on Earth. It could perform 3.1 billion calculations per second, which was faster than the theoretical top speed of the Cray Supercomputer.
His idea earned him the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers’ Gordon Bell Prize in 1989, considered the Nobel Prize of computing, and he was thereafter acknowledged as one of the fathers of the Internet. Since then, he has earned more than 100 prizes for his work and Apple Computer has employed his microprocessor technology in their Power Mac G4 model.
In addition, he received other honors, including Pioneer of the Year from the National Society of Black Engineers, Scientist of the Year in 1991, and Computer Scientist of the Year from America’s National Technical Association in 1993.
