Alan Kay

About this Speaker

Alan Kay likes to say: “No one owes more to his research community”.

He is a pioneer computing scientist and designer who helped invent personal computing, the graphical user interface, object-oriented programming, and helping children learn powerful ideas.

Honors include the 2003 Turing Award "for pioneering many of the ideas at the root of contemporary object-oriented programming languages, etc., and for fundamental contributions to personal computing"; the Draper Prize (jointly with Robert Taylor, Butler Lampson, and Charles Thacker) "for the vision, conception, and development of the first practical networked personal computers"; and the Kyoto Prize "for creation of the concept of modern personal computing and contribution to its realization.”