Who was Israeli American Daniel Lewin, the first victim of 9/11?

A profile of Daniel Lewin, the Israeli American man recognized as the first victim of the 9/11 attacks. The article traces his life from his birth in Denver, his aliyah to Israel at 14, his service in Sayeret Matkal, his academic achievements at the Technion and MIT, and his role as co-founder of Akamai Technologies. It details how he confronted hijackers on American Airlines Flight 11 and was killed, becoming the first casualty of the attacks.

This article profiles Daniel M. Lewin, the Israeli American man recognized as the first victim of the 9/11 attacks. Born in Denver, Colorado, Lewin made aliyah to Israel at 14. He served in the IDF's elite counterterrorism unit Sayeret Matkal, then worked as a researcher at IBM in Haifa while completing two undergraduate degrees at the Technion, where he was named Outstanding Student in Computer Engineering in 1995. In 1996, he received a scholarship to MIT for his PhD, where he developed a practical use for consistent hashing, an algorithm that enabled websites to handle higher user traffic. In 1998, he co-founded Akamai Technologies with his professor Tom Leighton and others, becoming a millionaire before 30. On September 11, 2001, aged 31, Lewin was traveling on American Airlines Flight 11 to Los Angeles for work. According to an FBI report, the 9/11 Commission, and flight attendant records, he confronted Al-Qaeda hijackers in front of him and tried to stop them but was slashed in the throat by Satam al-Suqami, a hijacker sitting behind him. After the planes hit the Twin Towers, Akamai was called upon to keep websites operational as traffic surged. Today, Akamai is a global leader in CDN and cloud security services. Lewin is named on 25 US patents.