15 Facts About Alan Kay

Originally from Springfield, Massachusetts, Alan Kay's family relocated several times due to his father's career in physiology before ultimately settling in the New York metropolitan area.

Alan Kay then taught guitar in Denver, Colorado for a year.

Alan Kay was drafted in the United States Army, then qualified for officer training in the United States Air Force, where he became a computer programmer after passing an aptitude test.

Alan Kay earned a Master of Science in electrical engineering in 1968, then a Doctor of Philosophy in computer science in 1969.

In 1969, Alan Kay became a visiting researcher at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in anticipation of accepting a professorship at Carnegie Mellon University.

Alan Kay is the architect of the modern overlapping windowing graphical user interface.

From 1981 to 1984, Alan Kay was Chief Scientist at Atari.

Alan Kay remained there until Ferren left to start Applied Minds Inc with Imagineer Danny Hillis, leading to the cessation of the Fellows program.

In 2001, Alan Kay founded Viewpoints Research Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to children, learning, and advanced software development.

Alan Kay served as president of the Institute until its closure in 2018.

In 2002 Alan Kay joined HP Labs as a senior fellow, departing when HP disbanded the Advanced Software Research Team on July 20,2005.

Alan Kay has been an adjunct professor of computer science at the University of California, Los Angeles, a visiting professor at Kyoto University, and an adjunct professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In December 1995, while still at Apple, Alan Kay collaborated with many others to start the open source Squeak version of Smalltalk.

Alan Kay is a prominent co-developer of the computer, focusing on its educational software using Squeak and Etoys.

Alan Kay has lectured extensively on the idea that the computer revolution is very new, and all of the good ideas have not been universally implemented.