Edmund Berkeley

[2] His 1949 book Giant Brains, or Machines That Think popularized cognitive images of early computers.

He was also a social activist who worked to achieve conditions that might minimize the threat of nuclear war.

After the company dropped the project, Berkeley was forbidden to work on anti-nuclear efforts, even on his own time, prompting him to quit Prudential in 1948 and found his own actuary and computing consultancy.

[7] After World War II, Berkeley became a lifelong peace activist and campaigned against nuclear proliferation.

The annual contest was a key point in the development of computer art up to the year 1973.