Bram Cohen is a computer programmer who is the chief scientist, and co-founder of BitTorrent. It is a peer-to-peer program developed for uploading and downloading files. The program functions via a file distribution protocol, namely the BitTorrent protocol, which was again, was developed by the expert himself.
Born on October 12th, 1975, Bram Cohen grew up in Manhattan. He claims to have learned the BASIC programming language at the age of five! After schooling, he joined the University of Buffalo, only to drop out of it later, and work for several dot.com companies. It was the experience he got from these firms that helped Cohen conceives the idea of BitTorrent. He designed the protocol in April 2001, and released its first version on July 2, 2001. As of 2013, BitTorrent had around 27 million users.
Apart from BitTorrent, Cohen has also founded CodeCon, an annual conference of technology enthusiasts and software hackers that was held between 2002 and 2009.
For his work on the BitTorrent protocol, Cohen has won many awards. He was also among the TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in 2005.