Doug Engelbart, whose inventions in the 1960s still define interactive computing today, spent two days at KMi this week discussing the overlap in mission with his Bootstrap Institute. Engelbart is a true pioneer of modern interactive computing, whose inventions include the mouse and cursor, multiple windowing, display-based text editing, hypermedia linking, shared whiteboards, outline processing, context-sensitive help, networked folders and online journals.

An open lecture in the Berrill Theatre was well attended by the university and wider public on Monday 29th October. Follow-up discussions next day in KMi (photo) explored in more depth the approaches and technologies that could help advance Engelbart’s mission to “augment human intellect”, specifically, “mankind’s ability to tackle complex, urgent problems”.

Engelbart was shown a variety of KMi knowledge technologies that intersect closely with his interests in capturing and mapping dialogue (D3E; Compendium, ScholOnto), and structuring knowledge repositories with ontologies (AKT).

To learn more, replay Engelbart’s KMi Lecture and browse the Bootstrap Institute‘s extensive resources on his lifetime’s research into intellectual technologies.