7 The 100 Most Influential Inventors of All Time 7

in 1971 with the trade name Kevlar, a fibre that finds use in

high-strength tire cord, reinforced boat hulls and other

structural parts, and lightweight bulletproof vests.

Douglas Engelbart

(b. Jan. 30, 1925, near Portland, Ore., U.S.)

D

ouglas Engelbart was an American inventor whose

work beginning in the 1950s led to his patent for the

computer mouse, the development of the basic graphical

user interface, and groupware.

Engelbart grew up on a farm near Portland. Following

two years of enlisted service as a radar technician for the

U.S. Navy in World War II, he completed his bachelor’s

degree in electrical engineering at Oregon State University

in 1948. He soon became dissatisfied with his electrical

engineering job at the Ames Research Center, located in

Moffett Field, Calif., and in December 1950 had the inspi-

ration that would drive the rest of his professional life.

Engelbart’s dream was to use computers to connect

individuals in a network that would allow them to share

and update information in “real time.” He combined this

idea of collaborative software, or groupware, with his

experience interpreting radar displays and with ideas he

gleaned from an Atlantic Monthly article by Vannevar

Bush, “As We May Think,” to envision networked com-

puters employing a graphical user interface. After

receiving a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the

University of California at Berkeley in 1955, he stayed on

as an acting assistant professor for a year before accepting

a position with the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in

Stanford, Calif.

In 1963 Engelbart was given funding by SRI to start his

own research laboratory, the Augmentation Research

Center, where he worked on inventing and perfecting