Some 55 years ago a 25 year old from Oregon wondered what to do with his life. He first decided to dedicate his career to the betterment of mankind. Later, when trying to settle on a suitably important mission, he got overwhelmed by the complexities of the important missions he looked at and realized we have to work together to solve them. This made him decide to focus his career on helping us solve urgent, complex problems collectively.

 

He realized computers could help. This was a time when users fed computers punched cards and got cards with different punches back when the computer was done. This young man had been a radar engineer in the Navy, and he realized that if you could interact 'live' with a radar it should be possible to interact with a computer via a console similar to a radar station and a keyboard.

 

This young man's name was Doug Engelbart, and he went on to develop what we think of today as modern, interactive computing - a computer you can use in real-time, not one you wait a day for. Additional inventions to complete the picture came quite naturally to him; the mouse, word processing, hypertext, email and so on.

 

Yet he never intended to be an inventor. Doug Engelbart is a philosopher who has influenced the way modern people work and communicate - we have only seen the start of the implementation of his vision.

 

The last weekend in January 2005, in Menlo Park, California, he celebrated his 80th birthday. He was joined by many of those who he worked with over the years, as well as close friends and family. We would like to honor him and his work, his vision and his dedication to augmenting us, not simply automating us.

 

For many of us, the demonstration of the oN Line System (NLS) in 1968 represented an epiphany of understanding of the power of non-numeric, interactive computing in pursuit of knowledge management. The richness of this vision continues to exceed our present grasp and represents an aspiration for all of us who seek to transform human ability to amass and comprehend an increasing amount of information.

 

Doug, we are only beginning to understand your vision. We honor you and thank you for improving our lives and that of millions around the world, few of whom have ever heard your name.