Scienceדניאל לוין

Daniel Lewin

Daniel Lewin was an American-Israeli mathematician and computer scientist who co-founded Akamai Technologies and was identified as the first victim of the September 11 attacks.

1970 to 2001Co-founding Akamai TechnologiesDeveloping consistent hashingFirst victim of September 11 attacks

Born: 14 May 1970, Denver
Died: 11 September 2001, New York City
Occupation: computer scientist, mathematician, businessperson
Education: Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Founded: Akamai Technologies (1998)

Daniel Lewin was born in 1970 in Denver

Lewin was born on May 14, 1970, in Denver, Colorado, to a Jewish family, and was one of three brothers. At 14 he moved to Israel with his family and grew up in Jerusalem. He finished high school at an ORT school.

After high school he was drafted into the IDF and served in Sayeret Matkal. He became an officer and reached the rank of captain.

He studied at the Technion in Haifa while working at the IBM research lab in the city, where he developed Genesys, a processor verification tool. In 1995 the Technion gave him its student award in Computer Engineering. In 1996 he moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to begin doctoral studies at MIT.

At MIT he and his advisor Tom Leighton developed consistent hashing, an algorithm for managing Internet traffic. In 1998 the two founded Akamai Technologies, where Lewin was chief technology officer and a board member. The company went public in October 1999.

On September 11, 2001, Lewin was killed aboard American Airlines Flight 11, apparently stabbed by a hijacker after trying to stop the hijacking. He was married and had 2 sons. A square in Cambridge and a student paper award at the STOC conference are named for him.