Fredrik Rosing Bull

Fredrik Rosing Bull was a Norwegian scientist, information technology pioneer, known for his work on improved punched card machines. Bull was born in Kristiania. In 1907, he finished his studies in civil engineering at the Technical School of Kristiania. In 1916, he was hired as a technical inspector for the insurance company Storebrand, where he developed an interest for punched card technology and began developing one of his own. In 1919, he obtained a patent for his machine, and in 1921 he prepared a team that took over the implementation of the machine at Storebrand. This team provided several new ideas for improving the Bull machine, rendering it superior to Herman Hollerith's device, the precursor to the IBM punched card machine, in use at that time. Bull continued to develop his ideas and improve the machine, which became a success throughout Europe. He was diagnosed with cancer in 1924 and died in 1925 at the age of 42. His patents were later sold in 1931 and constituted the basis for the founding of the French company Groupe Bull, a large information technology company operating in over 100 countries.