Inventors and scientists of Slovenian descent have been instrumental in pioneering the world’s first scientific pocket calculator, advancing key printing technologies, enabling the non-military application of GPS, and driving cutting-edge research in biomedical informatics, machine learning, and data science for large interconnected systems.
Slovenian heritage has quietly shaped American innovation beyond the well-known figures. This series uncovers the stories of American inventors of Slovenian descent, beginning with pioneers in information and communication technology.
A Slovenian inventor was one of the key people responsible for the creation of the world’s first scientific pocket calculator, Hewlett-Packard’s HP-35. Franc Rode (1934–2017) was the lead inventor in a team of four engineers behind the development of the HP-35. Rode also led the development of the first financial calculator, the HP-80. Zvonko Fazarinc (1928–2023) was the director of HP’s laboratory for measurements, computation systems, and data communication; he initiated the development of the first non-military navigation receiver based on the Global Positioning System (GPS). Henry Stalzer’s (1943–2026) licensed technology is an important element in laser printers and is used by companies such as HP and Xerox.
Two names stand out among the younger computer scientists working in the USA. Marinka Žitnik (1989) is an associate professor of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School. Jure Leskovec (1980) is a professor of computer science at Stanford University focusing on machine learning and data science for large interconnected systems. He was also chief scientist at Pinterest and co-founder and chief scientist of the startup company KUMO, which develops foundation models designed to make accurate business predictions. KUMO was acquired by Nvidia in May.
