Douglas C. Engelbart

Inventor, Visionary, Philosopher

Doug Engelbart is best known as the inventor of the computer "mouse" although his most significant work to date is leadership of the team that developed NLS, the first collaborative hypertext system back in the 1960s. His ongoing work is inspired by his deep-felt belief that society needs better ways to solve problems that are increasingly more urgent and complex. Today, he directs the California-based Bootstrap Institute to engage thought leaders and practitioners in a cooperative exploration of improvement strategies and the organizational/technology infrastructures that will be required. Dr. Engelbart's many honors include the National Inventors Hall of Fame, the ACM Turing Award, the Lemelson-MIT Prize, the Benjamin Franklin Medal, the IEEE von Neumann Medal and the US National Medal of Technology.

Underlying his ongoing work is the basic concept of boosting our collective intelligence, and particularly boosting the collective IQ of communities working on improving society, or improving important capabilities which would make organizations and societies more effective. Examples of improvement communities include associations, consortia, improvement initiatives and task forces, and grass-roots community initiatives.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Engelbart & http://community.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?DougEngelbart