Howard Aiken, born on March 8, 1900, in Hoboken, New Jersey, was a pioneering American physicist and computer scientist. His groundbreaking work centered around the development of the Harvard Mark I, an electromechanical computer completed in 1944. Aiken conceived the idea of an automatic calculating machine in the late 1930s and proposed the collaboration between Harvard University and IBM to bring his vision to life. The Harvard Mark I, a massive machine over 50 feet long, used electromagnetic switches and rotating shafts to perform complex calculations automatically. This is the same machine that Grace Hopper will get to meet later in the same year that set her on the path to becoming The Queen of Code.