Shiva Ayyadurai Biography

Shiva Ayyadurai is an American inventor of Indian origin credited by some sources to be the inventor of email. As a 14 year old in 1978, he created a computer program which was an electronic version of an interoffice mail system. He named the program “EMAIL” and applied for a copyright as software patents were not granted at that time in the U.S. In 1982 he received the first U.S. Copyright for that software, officially recognizing him as The Inventor of Email. While some organizations recognized his invention, he never received wide-spread recognition as the inventor of email. This honor was instead bestowed upon Raymond Tomlinson, an innovator in text messaging who is credited with the introduction of the “@” sign for internet addresses. Born to Hindu parents in India, Shiva Ayyadurai moved to the U.S. as a child. He grew up to be a brilliant student and volunteered at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) as a high school student. Recognizing the young boy’s potential, one of his supervisors challenged him to create a software system that replicated the paper-based mail and communication system. He successfully did it, thus creating the email. Ayyadurai, however, did not receive worldwide recognition for his creation and feels that due credit has been denied to him because of his Indian origins.