Centers Overview

The Computer History Museum is expanding into two major new areas of history: software and entrepreneurship. These two centers will "connect the dots" between computing's past and its future, provide new insight on the forces of change that computing in all of its forms have unleashed, and explore the coming technological, social and economic implications for the world.

Taking these new steps, and adding this work to our world-class collection of computing artifacts and our growing expertise in storytelling, education and media production, will bring a profound change to CHM. They will help us redefine for this century what a museum is, how it can engage minds around the world, and how it can use history as a platform to understand, and to look ahead.

Exponential

Entrepreneurs and computing go hand in hand. Across the world, people want to understand why that is, how it happens, what is special about the way it works in Silicon Valley, and how past innovation connects to the future. Exponential, a center for entrepreneurship and innovation, will capture and preserve that history and make those forward-looking connections.

Center for Software History

The purpose of the Center for Software History is to collect, preserve, interpret and present to the world the history of software and its ongoing impact on global society. This work will heavily focus not only on the history of software itself but also on the men and women who have created the platforms, programs, systems and businesses that have led to the revolution in computing worldwide over the last century. The Museum will bring the end product of the Center’s work to the public through a web portal, public exhibitions, an ongoing oral history program, dissemination of landmark vintage code with accompanying historic narratives, and education programs aimed at both the general public and the K-12 STEM+ audience with particular emphasis on late elementary, middle, and high schools.