Raymond Kurzweil ( KURZ-wyle; born February 12, 1948) is an American computer scientist, author, entrepreneur, futurist, and inventor. He is involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology and electronic keyboard instruments. He has written books on health technology, artificial intelligence (AI), transhumanism, the technological singularity, and futurism. Kurzweil is a prominent transhumanist who gives lectures about his optimistic outlook on the possibility of life extension via nanotechnology, robotics, and biotechnology. Kurzweil received the 1999 National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the United States' highest honor in technology, from President Bill Clinton in a White House ceremony. He received the $500,000 Lemelson–MIT Prize in 2001. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2001 for the application of technology to improve human-machine communication. In 2002 he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, established by the U.S. Patent Office. He has 21 honorary doctorates and honors from three U.S. presidents. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) included Kurzweil as one of 16 "revolutionaries who made America" along with other inventors of the past two centuries. Inc. magazine ranked him No. 8 among the "most fascinating" entrepreneurs in the United States and called him "Edison's rightful heir".
Life, inventions, and business career
Early life Kurzweil grew up in Queens, New York City. He attended NYC Public Education Kingsbury Elementary School PS188. He was born to secular Jewish parents who had emigrated from Austria just before the onset of World War II. Through Unitarian Universalism he was exposed to a diversity of religious faiths during his upbringing. His father, Fredric, was a concert pianist, a conductor and a music educator. His mother, Hannah, was a visual artist. He is the elder of two children; his sister Enid, an accountant in Santa Barbara, is six years his junior. As a boy, Kurzweil had an inventory of parts from various construction toys he had been given and old electronic gadgets he had collected from neighbors. In his youth, he was an avid reader of science fiction. At age eight, nine, and ten, he read the entire Tom Swift Jr. series. At age seven or eight, he built a robotic puppet theater and robotic game. He was involved with computers by age 12 (in 1960), when only a dozen computers existed in New York City, and built computing devices and statistical programs for the predecessor of Head Start. His parents were involved with the arts, and he is quoted in the documentary Transcendent Man as saying that the household always discussed the future and technology. Kurzweil attended Martin Van Buren High School. His uncle, an engineer at Bell Labs, taught Kurzweil the basics of computer science. In 1963, at 15, he wrote his first computer program. Kurzweil created pattern-recognition software that analyzed the works of classical composers, then synthesized its own songs in similar styles. In 1965 he was invited to appear on the CBS television program I've Got a Secret, where he performed a piano piece composed by a computer he had built. Later in the year, he won first prize in the International Science Fair for the invention; his submission to Westinghouse Talent Search of his first computer program alongside several other projects resulted in his being one of the contest's national winners, for which President Lyndon B. Johnson personally congratulated him during a White House ceremony. The experiences impressed upon Kurzweil the belief that nearly any problem could be overcome.
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