Sergio Beltrán López

Sergio Beltrán López (died 2004, in Cuernavaca, Morelos) was a Mexican engineer considered one of the founders of computing in Mexico. Born in Monterrey, he studied civil engineering at the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León from 1943 to 1946 and pursued further studies at Harvard University, the University of Denver and the Carnegie Institute of Technology. With Alberto Barajas, Carlos Graeff and Nabor Carrillo, he began efforts to bring computing to the National Autonomous University of Mexico in the mid-1950s, and when the university created its Electronic Computing Center on June 8, 1958, he became its founding director, obtaining and installing an IBM 650, the first computer to operate in Mexico, followed by a Bendix G-15. He later led information technology at the Comisión Federal de Electricidad and the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social, and headed the Department of Computer Engineering in UNAM's Faculty of Engineering from 1993 to 1998.