Preeminent scientist/inventor
on the future of innovation, technology and design.






Danny Hillis is one of the great spirits of modern engineering, an inventor and scientist who revolutionized the computing industry.

He pioneered the concept of parallel computers, now the basis for most supercomputers, as well as the RAID disk array technology used to store large databases.

He holds over 40 U.S. patents and is the author of The Pattern On The Stone: The Simple Ideas That Make Computers Work.

A skillful speaker, he seamlessly combines storytelling with technical insight and video and slide illustrations to discuss everything from trends in technology to the evolution of new media and the creative process.

Hillis was Vice President of Research and Development, at Walt Disney Imagineering, and a Disney Fellow. While at Disney, he developed new technologies and business strategies for Disney's theme parks, television, motion pictures, Internet and consumer products businesses. He also designed new theme park rides, a full sized walking robot dinosaur and various micro mechanical devices.

Danny Hillis is cofounder, chairman and Chief Technology Officer of Applied Minds, an advanced technology, creative design and consulting firm.

The Knowledge Web

Let’s consider what kind of automated tutor could be created using today's best technology. First, imagine that this tutor program can get to know you over a long period of time. Like a good teacher, it knows what you already understand and what you are ready to learn. It also knows what types of explanations are most meaningful to you. It knows your learning style: whether you prefer pictures or stories, examples or abstractions. Imagine that this tutor has access to a database containing all the world's knowledge. This database is organized according to concepts and ways of understanding them. It contains specific knowledge about how the concepts relate, who believes them and why, and what they are useful for. I will call this database the knowledge web, to distinguish it from the database of linked documents that is the World Wide Web.

…
With the knowledge web, humanity's accumulated store of information will become more accessible, more manageable, and more useful. Anyone who wants to learn will be able to find the best and the most meaningful explanations of what they want to know. Anyone with something to teach will have a way to reach those who what to learn. Teachers will move beyond their present role as dispensers of information and become guides, mentors, facilitators, and authors. The knowledge web will make us all smarter. The knowledge web is an idea whose time has come.

Excerpt from Edge.org


Credentials

• Fellow, American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the International Leadership Forum and the Association of Computing Machinery
• Former adjunct professor, MIT Media Lab
• Co-founder, Thinking Machines Corp
• Co-founder, Terrapin Inc., a producer of computer software for elementary schools
• Co-chairman, The Long Now Foundation
• Recipient,
  • (inaugural) Dan David Prize for shaping and enriching society and public life
  • the Hopper Award for his contributions to computer science,
  • the Spirit of American Creativity Award for his inventions, and the
  • Ramanujan Award for work in applied mathematics
• Former adjunct professor, MIT Media Lab
• Member, Science Board of the Santa Fe Institute, the SETI Institute’s Technical Advisory Committee, the Clock Library Foundation, and the advisory board of Yale’s Institute for Biospheric Studies
• Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the International Leadership Forum and the Association of Computing Machinery
• B.A, Mathematics, MIT, 1978.
• Ph D., Computer Science, MIT 1988.
• Graduate student at MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
• Designed tendon-controlled robot arms and a touch-sensitive robot ‘skin.’
• He also designed a computer composed of 10,000 Tinker Toys that could play tic-tac-toe, and is on display at the Boston Computer Museum.