Black Inventors Part 5
My father works at IBM and he brought the next African American inventor to my attention. Dr. Mark Dean was born in 1957 in the state of Tennessee. At an early age he experienced racism as a result of being one of a few African American students in his elementary school as a result of integration. One salient quote from Dr. Dean that illustrates the mindset at that time is:”one white friend in sixth grade asked if he was really black.” At that time Dr. Dean was puzzled by the question, however; as he reflects on that statement in this comment “That was the problem… The assumption about what blacks could do was tilted.” This bias continues to this day as often the first inclination toward African American students in predominantly Caucasian schools is slanted to their perceived athletic ability and not their intellectual capacity.
Fortunately for me and others employed in the IT field Dr. Dean was not deterred by his early childhood experiences. In 1980 Dr. Dean joined IBM and soon realized that the perceptions of him as a youth had followed him into adulthood as his colleagues were initially weary of who this African American man was and what exactly could he do for IBM. Dr. 
Dean quickly assuaged any doubts his colleagues may have had as he holds three of the original nine patents that provide the foundation on which all PCs are modeled after. Dr. Dean and fellow IBM co-worker Dennis Moeller devised the ISA bus system. The ISA bus system is essentially the precursor to USB/PCI/IDE/ and allowed early computers to interface with peripherals. Dr. Dean continued to work at IBM and his next idea led to the 1st GHz processor in 1998 which performed one billion calculations every second. Dr. Dean continues to push the envelope as an “idea man” who heads IBM’s Almaden Research Center. When asked what the limits of technology are, Dr. Dean aptly replies, “If you can talk about it that means it’s possible.” As someone who’s witnessed a myriad of technological advances in my lifetime, I believe this quote will be spot on for many years to come.
Reference: http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/computer-science/dean_mark.html
