14 year old innovated e mail

You're referring to the 14-year-old who invented an email system in 1971!

You're likely thinking of Ray Tomlinson, an American computer programmer and engineer who is credited with inventing email as we know it today. In 1971, while working on a project for the United States Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), Tomlinson was tasked with finding a way to send messages between different computer systems.

At the time, computers were not connected to the internet, and communication between them was limited. Tomlinson realized that he could use the @ symbol to separate the user's name from the hostname of the computer, creating a simple and intuitive way to address messages.

Tomlinson's innovation was to create a program that allowed users to send messages to each other using this new format. He also introduced the concept of a "mail box" where messages could be stored, and the ability to forward messages to other users.

Tomlinson's email system was initially used by the ARPA network, but it quickly spread to other networks and eventually became a standard feature of the internet. Today, email is an essential part of modern communication, used by billions of people around the world.

Ray Tomlinson's invention of email is considered one of the most significant innovations of the 20th century, and he is often referred to as the "father of email."