Stepan Pachikov — tech (evernote) with roots in the USSR
Stepan Pachikov is a Russian-American entrepreneur and computer scientist born in Azerbaijan (USSR) who pioneered handwriting recognition technology in the Soviet Union, co-founded ParaGraph International (whose technology became Apple's Newton handwriting recognition), and later co-founded Evernote.
Tracing the roots — Azerbaijan
Born in Baku (Azerbaijan SSR) in the Soviet era and educated as a mathematician, Pachikov represents the best of Soviet scientific education applied to commercial technology. His ParaGraph technology — developing handwriting recognition that Apple licensed for the Newton — was one of the earliest and most significant transfers of Soviet computer science expertise to Silicon Valley.
Azerbaijan. At the time, this region was one of the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union.