Alan Kay

Back in the 1970s Alan Kay helped reimagine what a computer could be. Building off the work of Seymour Papert, J. C. R. Licklider and others, he envisioned the possibility that computers could become something far more wonderful than sophisticated calculating machines.

They could become learning tools to empower our creative potential. If only we could imagine that potential on a Blue Plane.

To help unlock this potential, he created, with his team at Xerox's PARC, a new software language called Smalltalk.

Using Smalltalk, his team began to learn. To create in new ways. Could the computer reimagine how we wrote? Could the computer help us reimagine how we drew? Could the computer help us reimagine how we made music?

The personal computer of today was defined by these early questions. A computer that, in each of our hands, could become a creative instrument, one that might help us unleash our genius.