Modern email, an Indian’s simple idea, turns 32
Washington, Aug. 30: Email turned 32 on Saturday but how many of us know that this quick method of message transfer was invented by Indian American V. A. Shiva Ayyadurai when he was just 14.
In 1978, Mr Ayyadurai created a computer programme, which he called “email”, that replicated all the functions of the inter- office mail system: Inbox, Outbox, Folders, Memo, Attachments, Address Book, etc. These features are now familiar parts of every email system.
On August 30, 1982, the US government officially recognised Mr Ayyadurai as the inventor of email by awarding him the first US copyright for email for his 1978 invention. At that time, copyright was the only way to protect software inventions.
Email wasn’t created with a massive research budget in big institutions like the ARPANET, MIT or the military. Such institutions had thought it “impossible” to create such a system, believing it far too complex, Huffington Post said.
Mr Ayyadurai was born to a Tamil family in what was then Bombay. At the age of seven, he left with his family to live in the US.
At 14, he attended a special summer programme at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University to study computer programming, and later went on to graduate from Livingston High School in Livingston, New Jersey. While attending high school, he also worked at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey ( UMDNJ) as a research fellow.
Mr Ayyadurai’s talent, passion and commitment immediately impressed Dr Leslie Michelson, then director of the Laboratory Computer Network at the UMDNJ.
He gave him a challenge: convert the old system of paper- based mail communications used at UMDNJ to an electronic one.