Herman Hollerith (1860-1929), American inventor, born in Buffalo, New York, and educated at Columbia University, who devised a system of encoding data on cards through a series of punched holes. This system proved useful in statistical work and was important in the development of the digital computer. Hollerith's machine, used in the 1890 U.S. census, “read” the cards by passing them through electrical contacts. Closed circuits, which indicated hole positions, could then be selected and counted. His Tabulating Machine Company (1896) was a predecessor to the International Business Machines Corporation.