10 Most Influential People in the Tech World - The 2012 TIME 100

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#41 Marc Andreessen (Kingmaker)

Better known as the co-author of the popular web browser, Mosaic and co-founder of Netscape Communications Coproration, Marc Lowell Andreessen is an American multi-millionaire engineer, entrepreneur and investor.

Graduate of BS Computer Science in  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he worked at the university's National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), where he became familiar with Tim Berners-Lee's open standards for the World Wide Web. Andreessen and a full-time salaried co-worker Eric Bina worked on creating a user-friendly browser with integrated graphics that would work on a wide range of computers. The resulting code was the Mosaic web browser.

He co-founded the Netscape Communications (formerly Mosiac Communications Corporation) with Jim Clark in 1993 and Netscape Navigator became its flagship internet browser. On 2001, Andreessen left Netscape and founded Loudcloud, a services-based web hosting company. It was later sold to EDS company in 2003 where Loudcloud was changed its name to Opsware. Opsware was sold in September  2007 to Hewlett-Packard for approximately $1.6 billion.

Andreessen remained influential because of his different ventures and investments in different web companies including Ning, Digg. Plazes, Netvibes, CastTV and Twitter. Moreover, He serves on the board of Facebook, eBay, Kno, Hewlett-Packard, Bump, TinyCo, and Mixed Media Labs.

#55 Sheryl Sandberg (Chief Operating Officer)

Nevertheless, the highest-paid employee in Facebook company is also one of the most influential individual in the world. Sheryl Sandberg indeed is such a big inspiration to every aspiring women in this digital era.

As a Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, Sandberg was able to lead the company in times of obstacles and company's greatest struggles and pursuit for fame and survival. Being in the second highest position in the company, she is in-charge of everything except the product. And as the social networking giant reaches the peak of its success in terms of population, fame and wealth, she continued to help people make the most of a more open, more transparent world, as Facebook creates dynamic new connections between individuals, organizations and causes-connections with the power to brighten our shared future, one click at a time.

#57 Tim Cook (CEO)

When the former legendary CEO and visionary, Steve Jobs formally resigned Apple company on August 24, 2011, Cook immediately took the huge responsibility of driving the company into its impeccable journey and keeping the velocity high towards providing and maintaining innovative, high-quality products which the company has been widely appreciated and become known. It wasn't easy that time as the world was in very high expectations about what the company has yet to offer - there was also tension and fear among investors that the company's standing might go at some point lower than expected.

Despite all the challenges and expectations, Cook fiercely protected Job's legacy and lead Apple company to new heights while implementing major policy changes smoothly and brilliantly. He has indelibly imprinted his leadership on all areas of Apple- from managing its complex inner workings to identifying and shepherding new "insanely great" technology and design breakthroughs into the product pipeline.

#59 Daniel Ek (Music Man)

Daniel Ek is the brain behind the music streaming site Spotify. An entrepreneur and technologist, he founded the company in 1997 at age 14.

Prior to Spotify,  he became a CTO of Jajja Communications  and Stardoll and CEO of µTorrent, the world's most popular BitTorrent client with more than 100 million downloads.

Despite stern criticisms about the integrity of Spotify as a profitable platform for various music labels, Daniel's efforts to revolutionize the music   business and creating a good team in tech have helped him bring his company to new heights making Spotify a successful business until today.

#60 Virginia Rometty (Top Techie)

Better known for her nickname "Ginni", Virginia Marie Rometty is the current and the first woman CEO of the top computer firm IBM. On her appointment on January 2012, Ginni began to face new and bigger challenges in the company. 

Her 30 years of experience, efforts and dedication to IBM  made her credited for spearheading IBM's growth strategy by getting the company into the cloud computing and analytics businesses. She was also at the helm of readying Watson, the Jeopardy! playing computer, for commercial use.

In her new role, her impact will only be amplified. IBM spends a whopping $6 billion a year on R&D. With that investment and platform, Rometty will undoubtedly bring to bear innumerable technological breakthroughs — a big reason IBM's stock trades at record highs.

10 Most Influential People in the Tech World - The 2012 TIME 100

As soon as the Time Magazine revealed its annual TIME 100 which lists the most influential people in the world, I got the curiosity about who among of them are in the world of tech. While hearing or saying the word "influential" makes me think of Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates who are not just influential but also among the richest in their own generation, I was a little bit surprised to find out that most them who made it in the top list are completely unknown to me . But I feel happy now as my little research helped me to learn more information  about them and so they are just no more a "somebody".

We may haven't noticed them but the passion, efforts and contributions they have given to their works have amplified productivity in the field of technology and helped and also inspired many people around and beyond them. And just as Jeremy Lin who was named the most influential people this year at the deserved number 1 spot, these people in the world of tech are all well-deserved to be part of the prestigious list.

#4 SALMAN KHAN (Educator) 

The man behind khanacademy.org, a free online education platform and non-profit organization, Salman Khan is an educator by profession who, through his Academy, wants to give every kid a free, world-class education. The khanacademy.org has over 3,000 short lessons that allow kids to learn at their own pace. Students can practice exercises and allow them to go back to the pertinent video when they're having trouble. The site has a detailed dashboard for teachers who use Khan Academy in their classrooms.

His Khan Academy channel on Youtube has attracted 321,388  subscribers and has an outstanding 144, 016,152 views as of this April. 

He has been previously featured and recognized in numerous online publications including The Colbert Report, PBS NewsHour, CNN and  National Public Radio. He also received the prestigious Microsoft Tech Award for Education on 2009 and became part of Fortune's annual "40 under 40" list on 2010.

#15 BEN RATTRAY (Organizer) 

Founder and CEO of change.org, Ben Rattray continues to change the world and influence more people through his petition platform. His disclaimer on his profile page in the site reads:

"I started this journey because I had little way of translating my passion for a cause into effective action, and I hope we can deepen engagement in social issues and empower people to make a difference in their communities and the world around them."

Moreover, the goal of Change.org according to him is to "change the balance of power between individuals and large organizations."

From a social networking site for activists to a blogging platform then transforming to a petition platform, Change.org is eyeing for a widely group of audience by expanding into other countries making its website available for different languages.

#24 Henrik Schärfe (Inventor)

A Professor, PhD and Director of Center for Computer-mediated Epistemology in Aalborg University, Henrik Schärfe became an inspiration and influenced many of his co-inventors when his Geminoid-DK named Doppelgänger start appearing on youtube and during the TED conference.

His cool but creepy android was formed from his creative point of view that will make people uneasy enough to think about the role of technology in their lives and the boundaries between humans and machines.

#36 Anonymous (Hackers)

The next influential figure who made it in the list is not a 'person' in particular but a name that represents a group of  fearless hacktivist which has been very controversial recently because of their widely-publicized protests including The Pirate Bay, Megaupload and SOPA to name a few, and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Anonymous is indeed, the world's most famous hackers and definitely one of the most influential figure in the web. 

As described by Chris Landers through the Baltimore City Paper, "Anonymous is the first Internet-based superconsciousness. Anonymous is a group, in the sense that a flock of birds is a group. How do you know they're a group? Because they're traveling in the same direction. At any given moment, more birds could join, leave, peel off in another direction entirely."

Anonymous, due to their brave protests, has been included in numerous enemies list including Arab dictatorships, the Vatican, banking and entertainment firms, the FBI and CIA, the security firm Stratfor and even San Francisco's BART transport system.

#37 Pete Cashmore (Social News Guru)

In his very young age, 19, Pete Cashmore created his blog, Mashable way back in 2005 at Aberdeen Scotland. Today, the Scottish-American news website and Internet news blog is already one of the primary sources of timely and relevant news and information about the latest around the web primarily in social media, developments in mobile, entertainment, online video, business, web development, technology, memes and gadgets.

Mashable's immense popularity allowed Pete to achieve greater achievements that made him extremely influential in and out of the web. He was one of the Inc's "30 under 30" and Forbe's "Top 25 Web Celebs" and was also included in The Huffington Post's Top 10 Game Changer, all these recognition was achieved on 2009.

The goal behind Mashable is that Pete wanted to be part of the conversation about technological change and  Mashable gave him a voice. Today, it gives voice to millions who are trying to make their lives better through digital innovation.

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