Much has been made of the rise of Bill Gates, who dropped out of Harvard to create what would eventually become Microsoft. Philip Emeagwali dropped out of school in Nigeria at the age of 14 and went on to become a renowned computer scientist and mathematician, whose computational skills are being translated into such practical uses as the recovery of additional oil reserves in OPEC nations.

Philip Emeagwali, the oldest of nine children, was born in 1956 in the town of Akure, Nigeria. The family was poor; his father James was a nurse and his mother Agatha was a homemaker. Philip showed an early talent for mathematics. By the time he got to high school, his mathematical skills were so evident that his classmates gave him the nickname "Calculus."

Unfortunately, the family could not afford to send Philip to school after he turned 14, so he was forced to drop out...