Blum was born in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1938. He developed an original axiomatic approach to the theory of computational complexity in the 1960s, as opposed to the calculation methods of the machine that had been used. He moved to cryptography, where the launch of coins and other numbers of pseudorandom numbers was published, as well as the Blum-Goldwasser cryptosystem, a type of asymmetric key encryption algorithm.

About his education: He received his master's degree in electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) in 1961 from MIT, and his PhD in mathematics in 1964 from the same university. 

career and life in computer science: Blum developed an original axiomatic approach to the theory of computational complexity in the 1960s. His theoretical work turned out to have very extensive concrete applications, producing theorems such as the compression theorem, the gap theorem and Blum's acceleration theorem.

What he did to be influential: More recently still, he was involved in developing CAPTCHAs (the term stands for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart”). Blum received the A.M. Turing Award in 1995.