View source for Alan Kay

{{Short description|American computer scientist (born 1940)}}
{{Other people}}
{{distinguish|Allan K}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2022}}
{{BLP sources|date=April 2023}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name              = Alan Kay
| birth_name        = Alan Curtis Kay
| image             = Alan Kay and the prototype of the Dynabook (3009206205).jpg
| caption           = Alan Kay holding the prototype of the [[Dynabook]]
| birth_date        = {{birth date and age|1940|05|17}}
| birth_place       = [[Springfield, Massachusetts]], U.S.
| death_date        = 
| death_place       = 
| fields            = [[Computer science]]
| workplaces        = [[PARC (company)|Xerox PARC]]<br/>[[Stanford University]]<br/>[[Atari Inc.]]<br/>[[Apple Inc.]] [[Apple Advanced Technology Group|ATG]]<br/>[[Walt Disney Imagineering]]<br/>[[University of California, Los Angeles|UCLA]]<br/>[[Kyoto University]]<br/>[[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]]<br/>[[Viewpoints Research Institute]]<br/>[[Hewlett-Packard]] [[HP Labs|Labs]]
| education         = [[University of Colorado, Boulder]] ([[Bachelor of Science|BS]])<br>[[University of Utah]] ([[Master of Science|MS]], [[Doctor of Philosophy|PhD]])
| thesis_title      = FLEX: A Flexible Extendable Language
| thesis_url        = https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD0761962.pdf
| thesis_year       = 1968
| doctoral_advisors = [[David C. Evans (computer scientist)|David C. Evans]]<br/>[[Robert S. Barton]]
| academic_advisors = 
| doctoral_students = 
| notable_students  = [[David Canfield Smith]]
| known_for         = [[Dynabook]]<br/>[[Object-oriented programming]]<br/>[[Smalltalk]]<br/>[[Desktop metaphor]] <br/>[[Graphical user interface]]<br/>[[Window (computing)|Windows]]
| influences        = 
| influenced        = 
| awards            = ACM [[Turing Award]] (2003)<br/>[[Kyoto Prize]]<br/>[[Charles Stark Draper Prize]]
| spouse            = [[Bonnie MacBird]]
| signature         = <!-- Filename only -->
| footnotes         = 
}}

'''Alan Curtis Kay''' (born May 17, 1940)<ref name="turingaward">{{cite web |url=http://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/kay_3972189.cfm |title=ACM Turing Award |year=2003}} published by the [[Association for Computing Machinery]] 2012</ref> is an American [[computer scientist]] who pioneered work on [[object-oriented programming]] and [[Window (computing)|windowing]] [[graphical user interface]] (GUI) design. At [[Xerox]] [[PARC (company)|PARC]] he led the design and development of the first modern windowed [[desktop metaphor|computer desktop]] interface.  There he also led the development of the influential [[object-oriented programming|object-oriented]] [[programming language]] [[Smalltalk]], both personally designing most of the early versions of the language and coining the term "object-oriented."
He has been elected a Fellow of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]], the [[National Academy of Engineering]], and the [[Royal Society of Arts]].<ref>{{cite speech |last=Kay |first=Alan |year=1997 |url=http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/9697spr/node10.html |title=The Computer Revolution Hasn't Happened Yet}}</ref>  He received the [[Turing Award]] in 2003.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Alan Kay {{!}} Biography, Inventions, & Facts {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alan-Kay |access-date=2023-05-01 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref>

== Early life and work ==

In an interview on education in America with the Davis Group Ltd., Kay said:

{{Blockquote|I had the misfortune or the fortune to learn how to read fluently starting about the age of three, so I had read maybe 150 books by the time I hit first grade, and I already knew the teachers were lying to me.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://vimeo.com/20673320 |title=Interview with Alan Kay on education |work=The Generational Divide |publisher=The Davis Group |access-date=5 March 2011}}</ref>}}

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

He attended [[Brooklyn Technical High School]]. Having accumulated enough credits to graduate, he then attended [[Bethany College (West Virginia)|Bethany College]] in [[Bethany, West Virginia]], where he majored in [[biology]] and minored in mathematics.

Kay then taught guitar in [[Denver]], Colorado for a year. He was drafted into 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.

After his discharge, he enrolled at the [[University of Colorado Boulder]] and earned a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in mathematics and [[molecular biology]] in 1966.

In the autumn of 1966, he began graduate school at the [[University of Utah College of Engineering]]. He earned a [[Master of Science]] in [[electrical engineering]] in 1968, then a [[Doctor of Philosophy]] in [[computer science]] in 1969. His doctoral dissertation, ''FLEX: A Flexible Extendable Language'', described the invention of a [[computer language]] named [[Flex (language)|FLEX]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Kay |first=Alan |year=1968 |url=http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/761962.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170208052455/http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/761962.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=February 8, 2017 |title=FLEX: A Flexible Extendable Language |website=University of Utah}}</ref><ref name="H. Peter Alesso, C.F. Smith">{{cite book |last1=Alesso |first1=H. Peter |last2=Smith |first2=C.F. |year=2008 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DxGyOaAyd6gC&q=Connections:+Patterns+of+Discovery |title=Connections: Patterns of Discovery |page=61 |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |isbn=978-0-470-11881-8 |series=Wiley Series on Systems Engineering and Analysis, 29 |access-date=August 15, 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Barnes |first=S. B. |url=http://ethw.org/images/2/23/Barnes.pdf |title=Alan Kay: Transforming the Computer Into a Communication Medium |publisher=Engineering & Technology History Wiki |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160701083057/http://ethw.org/Images/2/23/Barnes.pdf |archive-date=July 1, 2016}}</ref> While there, he worked with the "fathers of [[computer graphics]]" [[David C. Evans (computer scientist)|David C. Evans]] (who had recently been recruited from the [[University of California, Berkeley]] to start Utah's computer science department) and [[Ivan Sutherland]] (best known for writing such pioneering programs as [[Sketchpad]]). Kay credits Sutherland's 1963 thesis for influencing his views on [[Object (computer science)|objects]] and [[computer programming]]. As he grew busier with research for the [[Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency]] (DARPA), he ended his musical career.

In 1968, he met [[Seymour Papert]] and learned of the programming language [[Logo (programming language)|Logo]], a [[Dialect (computing)|dialect]] of [[Lisp (programming language)|Lisp]] optimized for educational purposes. This led him to learn of the work of [[Jean Piaget]], [[Jerome Bruner]], [[Lev Vygotsky]], and of [[Constructionism (learning theory)|constructionist learning]], further influencing his professional orientation. On December 9 of that same year he was present in San Francisco for the [[The Mother of All Demos|Mother of all Demos]], a landmark computer demonstration by [[Douglas Engelbart]]. Even though he was sick with a high fever on that day, the event was very influential in Kay's career. He recalled later: "It was one of the greatest experiences in my life".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kennedy |first=Pagan |title=Inventology: How we dream up things that change the world |publisher=Mariner Books |year=2016 |isbn=9780544811928 |location=Boston |pages=115}}</ref>

In 1969, Kay became a visiting researcher at the [[Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory]] in anticipation of accepting a professorship at [[Carnegie Mellon University]]. Instead, in 1970, he joined the [[Xerox]] [[PARC (company)|PARC]] research staff in [[Palo Alto, California]]. Through the decade, he developed prototypes of networked workstations using the programming language [[Smalltalk]].

Along with some colleagues at PARC, Kay is one of the fathers of the idea of [[object-oriented programming]] (OOP), which he named.<ref name="Ram 2003 Kay on objects">{{cite web | last=Ram | first=Stefan L. | title=Dr. Alan Kay on the Meaning of "Object-Oriented Programming" (document) | publisher=Stefan L. Ram, Berlin, Germany. | date=2003-07-23 | url=https://www.purl.org/stefan_ram/pub/doc_kay_oop_en | access-date=2024-02-15}}</ref> Some original object-oriented concepts, including the use of the words 'object' and 'class', had been developed for [[Simula]] 67 at the [[Norwegian Computing Center]]. Kay said:

<blockquote>I'm sorry that I long ago coined the term "objects" for this topic because it gets many people to focus on the lesser idea. The big idea is "[[Message passing|messaging]]".<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/1998-October/017019.html |title=AlanKayOnMessaging}}</ref></blockquote>

While at PARC, Kay conceived the [[Dynabook]] concept, a key progenitor of laptop and [[tablet computer|tablet]] computers and the [[e-book]]. He is also the architect of the modern overlapping windowing [[graphical user interface]] (GUI).<ref>{{Cite book | last1=Bergin | first1=Thomas J. Jr. | last2=Gibson | first2=Richard G. Jr. |place=New York, NY |year=1996 |publisher=ACM Press, Addison-Wesley |title=History of Programming Languages II |url=http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=234286 | isbn=978-0-201-89502-5 | doi=10.1145/234286}}</ref> Because the Dynabook was conceived as an educational platform, he is considered one of the first researchers into [[mobile learning]]; many features of the Dynabook concept have been adopted in the design of the [[One Laptop Per Child]] educational platform,<ref>{{citation|url=http://www.laptop.org/en/vision/project/index.shtml|title=History|publisher=One Laptop Per Child|access-date=July 18, 2020|archive-date=July 6, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200706231744/http://laptop.org/en/vision/project/index.shtml|url-status=dead}}</ref> with which Kay is actively involved.

== Subsequent work ==
From 1981 to 1984, Kay was Chief Scientist at [[Atari]]. In 1984, he became an Apple Fellow. After the closure of the [[Apple Advanced Technology Group]] in 1997,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.i-programmer.info/history/8-people/438-alan-kay.html?start=1 |title=Alan Kay |date=November 13, 2009 |work=I Programmer}}</ref> he was recruited by his friend [[Bran Ferren]], head of research and development at [[Disney]], to join [[Walt Disney Imagineering]] as a Disney Fellow. He remained there until Ferren left to start Applied Minds Inc with Imagineer [[Danny Hillis]], leading to the cessation of the Fellows program.

In 2001, Kay founded Viewpoints Research Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to children, learning, and advanced software development. For their first ten years, Kay and his Viewpoints group were based at Applied Minds in [[Glendale, California]], where he and Ferren worked on various projects. Kay served as president of the Institute until its closure in 2018.

In 2002 Kay joined [[HP Labs]] as a senior fellow,<ref>{{cite news |last1=Fordahl |first1=Matthew |title=Computer Pioneer Has Joined HP Labs |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2002-nov-26-fi-hp26-story.html |access-date=18 October 2022 |work=Los Angeles Times |date=26 November 2002}}</ref> departing when HP disbanded the Advanced Software Research Team on July 20, 2005.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://svextra.com/blogs/gmsv/2005/07/hp_converting_s.html |title=HP converting storied garage into recycling center |last=Paczkowski |first=John |date=July 21, 2005 |work=Good Morning Silicon Valley |publisher=Media News Group |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070626093934/http://svextra.com/blogs/gmsv/2005/07/hp_converting_s.html |archive-date=June 26, 2007}}</ref>
He 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]] (MIT). Kay served on the advisory board of [[TTI/Vanguard]].

=== Squeak, Etoys, and Croquet ===
In December 1995, while still at Apple, Kay collaborated with many others to start the [[Open-source software|open source]] [[Squeak]] version of [[Smalltalk]]. As part of this effort, in November 1996, his team began research on what became the [[Etoys (programming language)|Etoys]] system. More recently he started, with [[David A. Smith (computer scientist)|David A. Smith]], [[David P. Reed]], [[Andreas Raab]], Rick McGeer, [[Julian Lombardi]], and [[Mark McCahill]], the [[Croquet Project]], an open-source networked 2D and 3D environment for collaborative work.

=== Tweak ===
In 2001, it became clear that the Etoy architecture in Squeak had reached its limits in what the Morphic interface infrastructure could do. [[Andreas Raab]], a researcher in Kay's group then at Hewlett-Packard, proposed defining a "script process" and providing a default scheduling mechanism that avoided several more general problems.<ref>{{cite web |last=Raab |first=Andreas |author-link=Andreas Raab |url=http://tweakproject.org/ABOUT/FAQ/OriginalTweakMemo/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111002012532/http://tweakproject.org/ABOUT/FAQ/OriginalTweakMemo/ |archive-date=October 2, 2011 |title=Events, Scripts & Multiple Processes |date=July 6, 2001 |access-date=June 7, 2009}}</ref> The result was a new user interface, proposed to replace the Squeak Morphic user interface. [[Tweak programming environment|Tweak]] added mechanisms of islands, asynchronous messaging, players and costumes, language extensions, projects, and tile scripting.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://tweakproject.org/TECHNOLOGY/Whitepapers/ |title=Tweak: Whitepapers |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111002012629/http://tweakproject.org/TECHNOLOGY/Whitepapers/ |archive-date=October 2, 2011}}</ref> Its underlying object system is [[Class (programming)|class-based]], but to users (during programming) it acts as if it were [[Prototype-based programming|prototype-based]]. Tweak objects are created and run in Tweak project windows.

=== The Children's Machine ===
In November 2005, at the [[World Summit on the Information Society]], the MIT research laboratories unveiled a new laptop computer for educational use around the world. It has many names, including the $100 Laptop, the [[One Laptop per Child]] program, the Children's Machine, and the [[XO-1 (laptop)|XO-1]]. The program was founded and is sustained by Kay's friend [[Nicholas Negroponte]], and is based on Kay's [[Dynabook]] ideal. Kay is a prominent co-developer of the computer, focusing on its educational software using Squeak and Etoys.

=== Reinventing programming ===
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. His lectures at the OOPSLA 1997 conference, and his ACM Turing Award talk, "The Computer Revolution Hasn't Happened Yet", were informed by his experiences with [[Sketchpad]], [[Simula]], [[Smalltalk]], and the bloated code of commercial software.

On August 31, 2006, Kay's proposal to the United States [[National Science Foundation]] (NSF) was granted, funding Viewpoints Research Institute for several years. The proposal title was "STEPS Toward the Reinvention of Programming: A compact and Practical Model of Personal Computing as a Self-exploratorium".<ref>{{cite web |last1=Kay |first1=Alan |last2=Ingalls |first2=Dan |author2-link=Dan Ingalls |last3=Ohshima |first3=Yoshiki |last4=Piumarta |first4=Ian |last5=Raab |first5=Andreas |author5-link=Andreas Raab |url=http://www.vpri.org/html/work/NSFproposal.pdf |title=Steps Toward The Reinvention of Programming – A Compact And Practical Model of Personal Computing As A Self-Exploratorium |access-date=March 23, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130508090431/http://www.vpri.org/html/work/NSFproposal.pdf|archive-date=May 8, 2013|url-status=dead}} Proposal to NSF – Granted on August 31, 2006</ref> STEPS is a [[recursive acronym]] that stands for "STEPS Toward Expressive Programming Systems". A sense of what Kay is trying to do comes from this quote, from the abstract of a seminar at Intel Research Labs, Berkeley: "The conglomeration of commercial and most open source software consumes in the neighborhood of several hundreds of millions of lines of code these days. We wonder: how small could be an understandable practical 'Model T' design that covers this functionality? 1M lines of code? 200K LOC? 100K LOC? 20K LOC?"<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kay |first=Alan |title=How Simply and Understandably Could The "Personal Computing Experience" Be Programmed? |url=http://www.intel-research.net/berkeley/viewseminarabstract.asp?index=605 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070625105727/http://www.intel-research.net/berkeley/viewseminarabstract.asp?index=605 |archive-date=June 25, 2007 |date=November 27, 2006}}</ref>
[[File:Alan Kay at the Getty Museum.jpg|thumb|right|Computer scientist Alan Kay]]
==Personal life==
Kay is a former professional [[jazz guitarist]], composer, and theatrical designer. 

He also is an amateur classical [[pipe organ]]ist.<ref>{{cite book |isbn=978-0974313115 |language=en |author1=Vint Cerf |author2=Bran Ferren |author3=Greg Harrold |author4=Quincy Jones |author5=Gordon Bell | display-authors=etal |author1-link=Vint Cerf |author2-link=Bran Ferren |author4-link=Quincy Jones |author5-link=Gordon Bell |title=Points of View — a tribute to Alan Kay |url=https://users.cs.duke.edu/~rodger/articles/AlanKay70thpoints-of-view.pdf |publisher=Viewpoints Research Institute, Inc., Glendale, California |access-date=5 November 2024 |pages=173,190-191,205-216,218,228-229 |date=2010}}</ref>

Kay is a grandson of author, illustrator, and photographer [[Clifton Johnson (author)|Clifton Johnson]], and a nephew of sailor, adventurer, and writer [[Irving Johnson]].

== Awards and honors ==
{{Multiple image
| align = right
| direction = vertical
| width = 240
| header = Alan Kay receiving awards
| image1 = Alan Kay - Receiving the Kyoto Prize.jpg
| caption1 = Kyoto Prize
| image2 = Alan Kay receiving the Turing Award.jpg
| caption2 = Turing Award
}}
Kay has received many awards and honors, including:
* UdK 01-Award in [[Berlin]], Germany for pioneering the [[Graphical user interface|GUI]];<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.udk-berlin.de/doku/award.html |title=UdK 01-Award |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050528012338/http://www.udk-berlin.de/doku/award.html |archive-date=May 28, 2005}}</ref> J-D Warnier Prix D'Informatique; NEC C&C Prize (2001)
* Telluride Tech Festival Award of Technology in Telluride, Colorado (2002)
* ACM [[Turing Award]] "For pioneering many of the ideas at the root of contemporary object-oriented programming languages, leading the team that developed Smalltalk, and for fundamental contributions to personal computing"<ref name="turingaward"/> (2003)
* [[Kyoto Prize]]; [[Charles Stark Draper Prize]] with [[Butler W. Lampson]], [[Robert Taylor (computer scientist)|Robert W. Taylor]] and [[Charles P. Thacker]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.nae.edu/Activities/Projects/Awards/DraperPrize/PastWinners/page20048879.aspx |title=2004 Recipients of the Charles Stark Draper Prize |work=National Academy of Engineering |publisher=National Academy of Sciences}}</ref> (2004)
* UPE [[Abacus]] Award, for individuals who have provided extensive support and leadership for student-related activities in the computing and information disciplines (2012)
* Honorary doctorates:
:– [[Royal Institute of Technology|Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan]] (Royal Institute of Technology) in Stockholm<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.kth.se/om/fame/hedersdoktorer/1.3974?l=en |title=Hedersdoktorer 2008-1995, inklusive ämnesområden |publisher=[[Royal Institute of Technology|KTH]] |language=sv |access-date=June 7, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090109102006/http://www.kth.se/om/fame/hedersdoktorer/1.3974?l=en |archive-date=January 9, 2009}}</ref> (2002)
:– [[Georgia Institute of Technology]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.whistle.gatech.edu/archives/05/dec/19/dec19.pdf |title=Tech forms dual-degree program with Chinese university |date=December 19, 2005 |work=The Whistle |publisher=Georgia Institute of Technology|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160701235129/http://www.whistle.gatech.edu/archives/05/dec/19/dec19.pdf|archive-date=July 1, 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref> (2005)
:– [[Columbia College Chicago]] awarded Doctor of Humane Letters, Honoris Causa<ref>{{cite web |url=http://web3.colum.edu/press_releases/archives/005315.php |title=Columbia College Chicago Announces 2005 Commencement Ceremonies |date=May 10, 2005 |publisher=Columbia College Chicago |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120320164915/http://web3.colum.edu/press_releases/archives/005315.php |archive-date=March 20, 2012}}</ref> (2005)
:– Laurea Honoris Causa in Informatica, [[Università di Pisa]], Italy (2007)
:– [[University of Waterloo]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://newsrelease.uwaterloo.ca/news.php?id=4973 |title=UW's convocation graduates 4,378 students, awards 10 honorary degrees |publisher=[[University of Waterloo]] |date=June 10, 2008 |access-date=June 7, 2009}}</ref> (2008)
:– [[Kyoto University]] (2009)
:– [[Universidad de Murcia]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.um.es/informatica/index.php?pagina=doctor_honoris_causa_alan_kay |work=Facultad de Informática, Universidad de Murcia|title=Alan Curtis Kay: Doctor Honoris Causa|year=2010}}</ref> (2010)
:– [[University of Edinburgh]]<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.ed.ac.uk/informatics/news-events/stories/alan-kay-receives-honorary-degree-from-informatics |work=School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh|title=Alan Kay receives an honorary degree from the School of Informatics|year=2017}}</ref> (2017)
* <!-- 2004? --> Honorary Professor, [[Berlin University of the Arts]]
* Elected fellow of:
:– American Academy of Arts and Sciences
:– [[National Academy of Engineering]] for inventing the concept of portable personal computing. (1997)
:– Royal Society of Arts
:– Computer History Museum "for his fundamental contributions to personal computing and human-computer interface development."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/hall/bios/Alan,Kay/ |title=Alan Kay: 1999 Fellow Awards Recipient |publisher=Computer History Museum |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121003012618/http://www.computerhistory.org/fellowawards/hall/bios/Alan,Kay/ |archive-date=October 3, 2012}}</ref> (1999)
:– Association for Computing Machinery "For fundamental contributions to personal computing and object-oriented programming."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://awards.acm.org/award_winners/kay_3972189 |title=ACM Fellows|publisher=Association for Computing Machinery|year=2008}}</ref> (2008)
:– [[Hasso Plattner Institute]]<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/news/beitrag/-9f25d717d8.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110724070627/http://www.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/news/beitrag/-9f25d717d8.html|archive-date=July 24, 2011|url-status=dead|title=Alan Kay as HPI fellow appreciated |date=July 21, 2011|language=de}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://tele-task.de/archive/video/flash/14029/ |title=Programming and Scaling |last1=Kay |first1=Alan |date=July 21, 2011 |publisher=HPI Potsdam |location=Germany, Potsdam, Hasso-Plattner Institute}}</ref> (2011)

His other honors include the J-D Warnier Prix d'Informatique, the ACM Systems Software Award, the NEC Computers & Communication Foundation Prize, the Funai Foundation Prize, the Lewis Branscomb Technology Award, and the ACM SIGCSE Award for Outstanding Contributions to Computer Science Education.

== See also ==
* [[List of pioneers in computer science]]

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
{{Sister project links|commons=Category:Alan Kay|q=Alan Kay|v=no|wikt=no|s=no}}
* [http://www.vpri.org/ Viewpoints Research Institute]
* {{TED speaker}}
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnFWlU5Gv8A "There is no information content in Alan Kay" 2012]
* [http://forth.org/POL.pdf  Programming a problem-oriented language], an unpublished book, by Charles H. Moore, June 1970

{{Smalltalk programming language}}
{{Turing award}}
{{Charles Stark Draper Prize}}
{{Software engineering}}
{{Timelines of computing}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kay, Alan}}
[[Category:1940 births]]
[[Category:American computer programmers]]
[[Category:American computer scientists]]
[[Category:Apple Inc. employees]]
[[Category:Apple Fellows]]
[[Category:Atari people]]
[[Category:American computer science educators]]
[[Category:Draper Prize winners]]
[[Category:Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science]]
[[Category:2008 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery]]
[[Category:Hewlett-Packard people]]
[[Category:Human–computer interaction researchers]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty]]
[[Category:Open source advocates]]
[[Category:Scientists from Springfield, Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Programming language designers]]
[[Category:Scientists at PARC (company)]]
[[Category:Turing Award laureates]]
[[Category:University of California, Los Angeles faculty]]
[[Category:University of Colorado Boulder alumni]]
[[Category:University of Utah alumni]]
[[Category:Kyoto laureates in Advanced Technology]]
[[Category:Academic staff of the Berlin University of the Arts]]