Michael Dertouzos

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Michael Leonidas Dertouzos (born November 5, 1936 in Athens , † August 27, 2001 in Boston ) was a Greek-American computer scientist.

Life

After attending high school in Athens, he studied with a Fulbright scholarship at the University of Arkansas and received his doctorate in 1964 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with Alfred Susskind ( threshold element synthesis ). From 1974 to 2001 he was director of the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) at MIT, which emerged from Project MAC. During this time, the LCS was involved in the development of time sharing systems , RSA cryptosystems , the spreadsheet , NuBus , X Window System , ARPAnet and the Internet . He was instrumental in bringing the W3C to MIT. He also foresaw the PC revolution early and used his reputation for predicting technological developments as a government and corporate advisor and author of several bestsellers. Most recently, he spoke out in favor of projects to better adapt the use of computers in everyday life (Human Centered Computing).

Dertouzos supported at MIT, the GNU Project by Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation .

He was a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the Academy of Athens . He was an honorary doctor of the University of Athens and commander of the Greek Legion of Honor. He was a member of the US Council on Foreign Relations. He held both US and Greek citizenship and was an advisor to the Greek Prime Minister. In addition, he maintained close contacts with the European Union. In 1997 he was co-chair of the conference on networked society at the World Economic Forum in Davos and in 1995 he was US representative at the G7 conference on the information society.

During the Carter administration he advised the President on redesigning the White House information systems.

In 1968 he co-founded the company Computek, which manufactured some of the early graphic and intelligent computer terminals, partly based on its own patents. He sold his shares in the company when he became director of the LCS.

He is buried in Athens.

Fonts

  • Made in America. Regaining the productive edge, MIT Press 1989
  • The Unfinished Revolution: Human-Centered Computers and What They Can Do For Us, Harper Business 2001
  • What Will Be: How the New World of Information Will Change Our Lives, Harper Collins 1997
  • The future of computing, Scientific American August 1999

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Mathematics Genealogy Project
personal data
SURNAME Dertouzos, Michael
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dertouzos, Michael Leonidas (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greek-American computer scientist
DATE OF BIRTH November 5, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Athens
DATE OF DEATH August 27, 2001
Place of death Boston