[rjsimmon]

He presented a paper on 19 February 1946, which was the first detailed design of a stored-program computer. The first working model was built from his plans. He also developed the first organized theory of digital computing. Turing machines are - to this day - the central object of study in theory of computation. Things like those - and other contributions - are why he is the father of modern computation.

Concur, the Turing Omnibus was required reading for my CompSci courses.

[Nathan Zachary]

Or, In 1939, John V. Atanasoff and Clifford Berry developed the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) at Iowa State University, which was regarded as the first electronic digital computer. The ABC was built by hand and the design used over 300 Vacuum Tubes and had capacitors fixed in a mechanically rotating drum for memory.

He could also be called the father of computer science, considering this was a true digital computer. The vaccum tube was also "the father of the modern resistor"

[Uri’el-2012]

He presented a paper on 19 February 1946, which was the first detailed design of a stored-program computer.

Joseph-Marie Jaquard (1752-1834) is credited
with the first stored program computer.

John von Neumann suggested the program residing
in the same memory space as the data.

Prior to Von Neumann the programs were a pre-wired board.