Daniel Lewin

Daniel Mark Lewin (Template:Langx; May 14, 1970 – September 11, 2001) was an American-Israeli mathematician and entrepreneur who co-founded Akamai Technologies. A passenger on board American Airlines Flight 11, it is believed that Lewin was stabbed to death by Satam al-Suqami, one of the hijackers of that flight, making him the first victim of the September 11 attacks.<ref>Leopold, Todd (September 11, 2013). "The legacy of Danny Lewin, the first man to die on 9/11". CNN.</ref><ref name=DailyNews>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=Tablet>Template:Cite news</ref>

Early life

Lewin was born on May 14, 1970, in Denver, Colorado, to a Jewish family and was one of three brothers. He moved to Israel with his family at age 14 and spent the remainder of his childhood living in Jerusalem. He completed his secondary education at an ORT high school.<ref name=Ynet>Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=forward>The Life and Loss of Daniel Lewin, Web Genius and 9/11’s ‘First Victim’</ref><ref>Paid Notice: Deaths LEWIN, DANIEL M.</ref>

Career

After finishing high school, Lewin was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and served in the elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit, eventually becoming an officer.<ref name=Ynet/> Lewin rose to the rank of captain.<ref name=DailyNews/>

After being discharged from the army, Lewin studied electronic engineering at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa while simultaneously working at IBM's research laboratory in the city, where despite his simultaneous university studies he became a full-time research fellow and project leader.<ref name=invent>Daniel Lewin</ref> While at IBM, he developed the Genesys system, a processor verification tool widely used within IBM and in other companies such as Advanced Micro Devices and SGS-Thomson.<ref name=Akamai>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=forward/>

Lewin received a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Science, summa cum laude from the Technion and was named as the university's outstanding student in Computer Engineering in 1995.<ref name=invent/> He moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1996 to begin graduate studies toward a Ph.D at MIT. While there, he and his advisor, Professor F. Thomson Leighton, developed consistent hashing, an algorithm for optimizing Internet traffic.<ref name=UniversityLasVegas>Template:Cite web</ref> These algorithms became the basis for Akamai Technologies, which they founded in 1998.<ref name=Akamai/> Lewin was the company's chief technology officer and a board member, and accumulated substantial wealth during the Internet boom.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Death and legacy

File:12.6.11DanielMLewinPanelN-75ByLuigiNovi1.jpg

Lewin's name is located on Panel N-75 of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum's North Pool, along with those of other passengers of Flight 11.

Lewin was reportedly stabbed aboard American Airlines Flight 11 during its hijacking in the September 11 attacks while traveling to a business meeting in Los Angeles.<ref name="slate">Template:Cite web</ref> A 2001 FAA memo suggests he may have been stabbed by Satam al-Suqami after attempting to thwart the hijacking. According to the memo, Lewin was seated in business class in seat 9B, near hijackers Mohamed Atta, Abdulaziz al-Omari, and al-Suqami. Initial reports indicated that he had been shot by al-Suqami, but the final draft of the memo omitted all references to gunfire.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

According to 9/11 Commission Report, Lewin was stabbed by one of the hijackers, likely Satam al-Suqami, who was seated directly behind him.<ref name="9/11Report">Template:Cite web</ref> Flight attendants who contacted airline officials from the plane reported that Lewin's throat was slashed, presumably by the terrorist sitting behind him.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

The 9/11 Commission speculated that Lewin, being a veteran of the Israeli military, may have attempted to confront Atta or Omari, who had been seated in front of him, unaware that al-Suqami was sitting just behind him.<ref name="9/11Report"></ref> Lewin was identified as the first victim of the September 11 attacks.<ref name=DailyNews/><ref name=Tablet/><ref name=5TJT>Template:Cite web</ref>

Lewin was survived by his wife Anne and his two sons, Eitan and Itamar, who were five and eight years old, respectively, at the time of the attacks.<ref name=Ynet/><ref name=Akamai/><ref name=5TJT/><ref name=MIT>Template:Cite web</ref>

In July 2004, it was reported that Lewin's recovered remains had been identified from Ground Zero.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Canadian actor Brad Hampton portrayed Lewin in the BBC docudrama Zero Hour Season 1: Episode 2 (2004) called "The Last Hour of Flight 11".<ref>Template:Citation</ref>

After his death, the intersection of Main and Vassar Streets in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was renamed Danny Lewin Square in his honor.<ref name=MIT/> The award for the best student-written paper at the ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing (STOC) was also named the Danny Lewin Best Student Paper Award, in his honor.<ref name=UniversityLasVegas/> In 2011, on the tenth anniversary of his death, Lewin's contributions to the internet were memorialized by friends and colleagues.<ref>Sitaraman, Ramesh (September 11, 2011). "9/11: A Personal Remembrance" Template:Webarchive. University of Massachusetts Amherst.</ref><ref>Bray, Hiawatha Bray (September 4, 2011). "A lost spirit still inspires". The Boston Globe.</ref>

At the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, Lewin is memorialized at the North Pool, on Panel N-75.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Lewin is the subject of the 2013 biography No Better Time: The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet by Molly Knight Raskin.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> According to Raskin, "Because of Akamai, almost every major news site remained up and running [on September 11], a feat that proved everything Danny promised to be possible".<ref name="slate"></ref>

Awards

• 1995 – The Technion named him the year's Outstanding Student in Computer Engineering.
• 1998 – Morris Joseph Levin Award for Best Masterworks Thesis Presentation at MIT.Template:Clear

External links

• Consistent hashing for relieving hot spots on the world wide web, Akamai Technologies.
• Daniel was an inspiration, Ynetnews.
• The Akamai Network: A Platform for High-Performance Internet Applications, Erik Nygren, Ramesh K. Sitaraman, and Jennifer Sun, ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review, Vol. 44, No.3, July 2010.
• Template:Find a Grave