# Alan Kay Alan Curtis Kay (born May 17, 1940) is an American computer scientist who pioneered object-oriented programming and windowing graphical user interfaces (GUI), earning him recognition as the "father of the personal computer." At Xerox PARC in the 1970s, Kay led groundbreaking work that created the foundation for modern personal computing, including the development of the Smalltalk programming language (the first object-oriented language), the concept of the Dynabook (inspiring today's tablets), and the first modern windowed desktop interface. His team's innovations at PARC led to technologies like Ethernet, laser printing, and desktop publishing. Kay received the Turing Award in 2003 for his contributions to contemporary object-oriented programming languages and personal computing. He has worked at Apple, Atari, Disney, HP, and founded Viewpoints Research Institute, continuing to shape the future of computing and learning technologies. ## Quotes <!-- QueryToSerialize: LIST FROM #type/quote AND [[Alan Kay]] WHERE public_note = true SORT file.name ASC --> <!-- SerializedQuery: LIST FROM #type/quote AND [[Alan Kay]] WHERE public_note = true SORT file.name ASC --> - [[Point of view is worth 80 IQ points]] - [[The best way to predict the future is to invent it]] <!-- SerializedQuery END --> ## Books <!-- QueryToSerialize: LIST FROM #books AND [[Alan Kay]] WHERE public_note = true SORT file.name ASC -->