Alan Kay

American computer scientist (born 1940)

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Born 1940 · age 86United States

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Wikipedia
39 languages
Cross-language footprint
Age
86
Born 1940
Awards
8
recognised works

Summary

Updated 2026-06-21

Alan Curtis Kay is an American computer scientist who pioneered work on object-oriented programming and windowing graphical user interface (GUI) design. At Xerox PARC he led the design and development of the first modern windowed computer desktop interface. There he also led the development of the influential object-oriented programming language Smalltalk, both personally designing most of the early versions of the language and coining the term "object-oriented." He has been elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Royal Society of Arts. He received the Turing Award in 2003.