Dr. Douglas C. Engelbart, Founder Emeritus of the Doug Engelbart Institute*, established an unparalleled track record in predicting, designing, and implementing the future of organizational computing. From his early vision of turning organizations into augmented knowledge workshops, he went on to pioneer what is now known as collaborative hypermedia, knowledge management, community networking, and organizational transformation.
Well-known technological firsts include the mouse, display editing, windows, cross-file editing, outline processing, hypermedia, and groupware. Integrated prototypes were in full operation under the NLS system, as early as 1968. In the last decade of its continued evolution, thousands of users have benefited from its unique team support capabilities.
After 20 years directing his Augmentation Research Center (ARC) lab at Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International), and 11 years as senior scientist, first at Tymshare, and then at McDonnell Douglas Corporation, Engelbart founded the Bootstrap Institute, where he worked closely with industry and government stakeholders to launch a collaborative implementation of his work for over a decade.
Engelbart received numerous awards for outstanding lifetime achievement and ingenuity, including the National Medal of Technology, the Lemelson-MIT Prize, and ACM’s 1997 A.M. Turing Award. His life’s work, with his “big-picture” vision and persistent pioneering breakthroughs, has made a significant impact on the past, present, and future of personal, interpersonal, and organizational computing.
