TIME TESTED
Elephant Footprint DOUG ENGELBART’S VISION AND IMPACT TRANSCENDED HIS COMPUTER MOUSE BY REID CREAGER
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his is the kind of headline and obituary that would have made Doug Engelbart sigh. “Doug Engelbart: Inventor of the computer mouse,” reads the headline on the website The Independent. The lead says: “Douglas Engelbart was the inventor of the mouse, the simple tool that dramatically changed the way in which humans interact with their computers. Since the first public demonstration of the mouse in 1968 over a billion have been sold worldwide.” Many similar obits appeared on July 3, 2013, the day after he died at 88. Certainly, a large number of these stories were factually correct, including the one above. But Engelbart strove for a much larger impact via an invention he considered much more important for humankind.
Beyond the Gadgets
“I would say that 90 percent of his work did not get fulfilled,” says his daughter, Christina Engelbart, co-founder and executive director of the Doug Engelbart Institute in Menlo Park, Calif. His seminal invention was a 1962 conceptual framework that called for augmenting human intellect to keep pace with rapidly advancing technology, anchored by the concept of a “Creative IQ” to maximize this collaboration. Some have suggested this could be the most important paper in computer history. At the time of his passing, Engelbart was frustrated by humans’ failure to prioritize the power of the Creative IQ. His vision was that technology would work with our infinite capacities as humans, not work independently of them. 10 INVENTORS DIGEST JUNE 2016