Jacek Karpiński (9 April 1927 – 21 February 2010) was a Polish pioneer in computer engineering and computer science. During World War II, he was a soldier in the Batalion Zośka of the Polish Home Army, and was awarded multiple times with a Cross of Valour. He took part in Operation Kutschera (intelligence) and the Warsaw Uprising, where he was heavily wounded. Later, he became a developer of one of the first machine learning algorithms, techniques for character and image recognition. After receiving a UNESCO award in 1960, he travelled for several years around the academic centres in the United States, including MIT, Harvard, Caltech, and many others. In 1971, he designed one of the first minicomputers, the K-202. Because of the policy on computer development in the People's Republic of Poland, belonging to the Comecon that time, the K-202 was never mass-produced. Karpiński later became a pig farmer, and in 1981, after receiving a passport, emigrated to Switzerland. He also founded the Laboratory for Artificial Intelligence of the Polish Academy of Sciences in the early 1960s.
Family and childhood Jacek Karpiński was born on 9 April 1927 in Turin, Italy into a family of Polish intellectuals and alpinists. His father, Adam 'Akar' Karpiński, was a prominent aeronautic engineer (who co-constructed the SL-1 Akar, the first glider constructed entirely by the Poles) and inventor, credited with projects of innovative climbing equipment (crampons, 'Akar-Ramada' tent). His mother, Wanda Czarnocka-Karpińska, was a respected physician who went on to become Dean of the University of Physical Education in Warsaw. Both were pioneers of winter mountaineering in the Tatra Mountains (first successful winter attacks on Banówka, Nowy Wierch, Lodowy Szczyt and others). Adam Karpiński was also a member of a Polish expedition into the Andes, which was the first to climb the peak Mercedario (6720 m.). Karpiński himself was due to be born in the Vallot winter hut near Mont Blanc, but due to the extreme weather conditions, his parents had to retreat to Turin, where their first child was born. Karpiński had one younger brother, Marek, who also became an electrical engineer. The family moved from Biała Podlaska to Warsaw in 1934, where Wanda took a job at Physical University of Warsaw and Adam worked in PZL (Polish Aviation Works). Karpiński's father died in September 1939 during an expedition to Nanda Devi in the Himalayas. After an unsuccessful attack on the summit, along with Stefan Bernadzikiewicz, he decided to climb the nearby Tirsuli (7039m), where both were killed by an avalanche.
Wartime Karpiński's life was changed not only by his father's death but by the outbreak of World War II. Despite his young age (fourteen at the time), by pretending to be seventeen, he managed to join the Gray Ranks, a Polish underground paramilitary boy scouts organization, where he served in Grupy Szturmowe (Assault Groups). In early 1943, he was severely injured while working on homemade bombs for an underground sabotage operation when one of them accidentally exploded in the basement of his house. He lost sight in both eyes and faced the serious threat of hand-amputation. After his mother's intervention and the help of her fellow physicians, his eyes recovered fully and the hand was saved, but he never regained total control over it. After the recovery, Karpiński resumed his activities in the Home Army. With the help of his mother, Wanda, and brother, Marek, who both also actively participated in the resistance effort, the family established a secret resistance outpost in their family home on Obserwatorów Street. The place was an outpost for Juliusz "Laudański" Deczkowski's unit and contained a clandestine shooting range. It was also a hideout for Stanisław Miedza-Tomaszewski, a Home Army officer working for its Informational Department. Karpiński participated in numerous field operations, including Sieczychy Operation (Akcja pod Sieczychami), as a soldier, and Operation Kutschera, as a part of recon under Wiesław Krajewski. After the formation of the Home Army's Zośka battalion, Karpiński enrolled, where he befriended poet Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński, both being commanders of smaller sub-units. Karpiński also participated in the Warsaw Uprising. On the first day of fighting, he was trapped weaponless with around 30 other soldiers in a hospital building on Koszykowa street after the weaponry supply had been mistakenly directed somewhere else. While evacuating the unit, Karpiński's group was caught under heavy fire, which resulted in most of the evacuees dead. Karpiński himself was shot with a 9mm caliber gun – a bullet was stuck in his backbone but he survived. Found next day by the hospital's nurses, he received treatment but remained paralyzed. Released from hospital after the Uprising's collapse, he rejoined his family in Pruszków but remained unable to stand or walk. The family moved through Kraków and Zakopane to a small village of Murzasichle in the Tatras, where they remained through the rest of the war. During the course of the war, Karpiński was awarded the Cross of Valour three times.
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