Douglas Engelbart

Douglas Engelbart

Douglas Carl Engelbart (born January 30, 1925) is an American inventor, and an early computer and internet pioneer. He is best known for his work on the challenges of human–computer interaction, particularly while at his Augmentation Research Center Lab in SRI International, resulting in the invention of the computer mouse, and the development of hypertext, networked computers, and precursors to graphical user interfaces.

He is a committed, vocal proponent of the development and use of computers and networks to help cope with the world’s increasingly urgent and complex problems. Engelbart embedded a set of organizing principles in his lab, which he termed "bootstrapping strategy". He designed the strategy to accelerate the rate of innovation of his lab.