Dr. Alan Kay is best known for the idea of personal computing, the conception of the intimate laptop computer, and the inventions of the now ubiquitous overlapping-window interface and modern object-oriented programming. These were catalysed by his deep interests in education and children. He led one of several groups in the early '70s at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center that together developed these ideas into: modern workstations and the forerunners of the Macintosh, Smalltalk, EtherNet, Laserprinting, and network "client-servers".
Before Xerox, Kay was a member of the University of Utah ARPA research team that developed 3D graphics. His PhD in 1969 was awarded for the development of the first graphical object-oriented personal computer. His undergraduate degrees were in Mathematics and Molecular Biology (from the University of Colorado in 1966). As a member of the ARPA community, he also participated in the early design of the ARPANet (which became the Internet). After Xerox he was Chief Scientist of Atari, and from 1984 has been a Fellow at Apple Computer. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Royal Society of Arts. A former professional jazz guitarist and composer, he is now an amateur classical pipe-organist.