Professor Michael Leonidas Dertouzos

A Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Director of the M.I.T. Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) from 1974 to 2001, during his term, LCS innovated in a variety of areas, including RSA encryption, the spreadsheet, the NuBus, the X Window System, and the Internet. He was instrumental in defining the World Wide Web Consortium and bringing it to MIT. He was a firm supporter of the GNU Project, Richard Stallman, and the FSF, and their continued presence at MIT. In 1968, he co-founded Computek, Inc., a manufacturer of graphics and intelligent terminals with Marvin C. Lewis and Dr. Huber Graham. He was a graduate of Athens College and attended the University of Arkansas on a Fulbright Scholarship. He received his Ph.D. from M.I.T. in 1964 and joined the M.I.T. faculty. His colleagues remember him as a visionary who championed the development of technology with an eye towards human utility. ?He set an incredible percentage of the agenda for computer science [in the past several years],? said Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Harold Abelson PhD ?73. ?He was the first guy who said we should use computers for education, back when we had about ten computers on campus. In 1975, he went around with this crazy idea that someday there will be computers in the home?. Publications he authored or co-authored are: ?The Unfinished Revolution: Human-Centered Computers and What They Can Do For Us?, 2001, ISBN 0-06-662067-8; ?What Will Be: How the New World of Information Will Change Our Lives?, 1997, ISBN 0-06-251479-2; "Communications, Computers and Networks", in Scientific American Special Issue on Communications, Computers, and Networks, September, 1991; and (with R.K. Lester, R.M. Solow and the MIT commission on industrial productivity), ?Made in America: Regaining the Productive Edge?, 1989, ISBN 0-262-04100-6.