Personal

Born, February 12, 1948

Married to Sonya R. Kurzweil

Contact Information

Kurzweil Technologies, Inc.

PMB 193 733 Turnpike Street North Andover, MA 01845

781-263-0000

Fax: 781-263-9999

E-mail: ray@kurzweiltech.com

Web: www.KurzweilTech.com and www.KurzweilAI.net

Technology Firsts

2006	First pocket-sized print-to-speech reading machine for the blind (the Kurzweil – National Federation of the Blind Reader)
2001	First “host / hostess” Avatar on the Web to combine a lifelike photo realistic, moving and speaking facial image with a conversational engine.
2001	First Virtual Performing and Recording Artist (Ramona) to perform in front of a live audience with a live band.
1997	First Print-to-Speech Reading System for Persons with Reading Disabilities that Reads from a Displayed Image of the Page (Kurzweil 3000)
1997	First Continuous Speech Natural Language Command and Control Software(Kurzweil VoiceCommands)
1994	First Speech Recognition Dictation System for Windows (Kurzweil Voice for Windows)
1987	First commercially marketed Large Vocabulary Speech Recognition (Kurzweil Voice Report)
1985	First Knowledge Base System for Creating Medical Reports (Kurzweil VoiceMED)
1984	First Computer Music Keyboard capable of accurately reproducing the sounds of the grand piano and other orchestral instruments (Kurzweil 250)
1976	First Omni-Font (i.e., any type font) Optical Character Recognition (now Xerox TextBridge)
1976	First Print-to-Speech Reading Machine for the Blind (Kurzweil Reading Machine) The Kurzweil Reading Machine is considered to be the world’s first consumer product to successfully incorporate Artificial Intelligence technology.
1975	First CCD Flatbed Scanner
1975	First Text-to-Speech speech synthesis
1967	First computer-based Expert System for College Selection (SELECT).  SELECT was sold to Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (New York)
1964	Developed computer-based expert system for music composition; won seven national awards including first prize in the International Science Fair in Electronics & Communications. Honored at award ceremony with President Johnson recognizing achievements of young American scientists.
1964	First computerized Four-Way Analysis of Variance (statistical program)

Selected Current Products of Companies Founded by Ray Kurzweil

The companies founded by Ray Kurzweil all continue with major research and development programs and product lines. Three of these companies (the last three below) were sold to larger companies, but nonetheless maintain their identity as active subsidiaries. The products offered by these companies continue to be prominent in their markets, which are the same markets they were founded to pursue. Below are selected current products of these companies, many of which have won awards.

	K-NFB Reading Technology, Inc.
		Kurzweil – National Federation of the Blind Reader
	Kurzweil Accelerating Intelligence Network, Inc.
		The KurzweilAI.net web site and newsletter
	Kurzweil CyberArt, Inc.
		AARON, The cybernetic artist
		Ray Kurzweil's Cybernetic Poet
	Kurzweil Educational systems, Inc.
		Kurzweil 3000 Reading System for Persons with Reading Disabilities
		Kurzweil 1000 Reading System for the Blind
	Kurzweil Music Systems (division of Hyundai.):
		Kurzweil Home Products: Mark 5, 10, 150, Micro Piano and others
		Kurzweil Pro Products: K2000, K2500, K2600, PC88 and others
	Nuance (formerly Kurzweil Computer Products, Inc.):
		TextBridge (shrink-wrapped OCR product)

Selected Accomplishments of Kurzweil Technologies, Inc.

Advisors/Mentors to:

United Therapeutics: (public) pharmaceutical company
Inforte: e-business consulting
Zyvex: nanotechnology
New Hope Pharmaceuticals: cancer and disease assays
SSB Technologies: enabling web technology for disabilities
Integrated Fuel Cell Technologies: microscopic fuel cells using MEMS
Biophan Technologies: pacemakers that allow MRI
TechOnline: online education and training for engineers

Software Development of Patient Simulation System for The American Board of Family Practice

Advisor to TechOnline, a leading online educational site for engineers

Arranged the sale of the assets of

The International Conference on Signal Processing Applications and Technology and DSP World EXPO to Miller Freeman Co., Inc.

Arranged the sale of the patent assets (as court appointed exclusive agent) of

Kendall Square Research, Inc. to Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Arranged the license of technology assets (as court appointed exclusive agent) of

Kendall Square Research, Inc. to Dolphin Systems, Inc.

The principal technology advisor to Wang Laboratories, Inc. in the negotiation of its Strategic Alliance Agreement with Microsoft Corp.

The principal technology advisor to the Creditors Committee for Wang Laboratories, Inc. in the formulation of its plan of reorganization confirmed in September, 1993.

Public Company Board Positions

United Therapeutics (2002 - present)

Inforte (1999 - present)

Medical Manager Corporation (1997 - 2000)

Wang Laboratories, Inc. (October 1993-1999, when company was sold to Getronics) Chairman, Strategy and Technology Committee, Board of Directors (October 1993 – 1998)

Kurzweil Applied Intelligence, Inc. (1982 until its sale in 1997)

Social and Professional Organizations

Director, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence

Chairman and founder, The Kurzweil Foundation

The Kurzweil Foundation supports the application of technology for the handicapped and projects to advance public understanding of the social impact of new technology. A current project is to provide scholarships to blind students (over 250 given out).

Trustee, Beth Israel Hospital

Director, Massachusetts Computer Software Council

Former Director, Boston Computer Society

Incorporator, Boston Museum of Science

Former Member, MIT Corporation Visiting Committee, MIT School of Humanities, MIT School of Music

Former Overseer, Board of Overseers, New England Conservatory of Music

Former Member, Technology Advisory Committee, National Center on Adult Literacy, University of Pennsylvania

Chairman, "Robots and Beyond: The Age of Intelligent Machines" (Exhibition on Artificial Intelligence presented at eight leading science museums), 1987-1990.

Books and Film

The Singularity is Near, When Humans Transcend Biology
	www.Singularity.com Viking / Penguin Books, September 2005
Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever, co-authored with Terry Grossman, M.D.
	www.Fantastic-Voyage.net Rodale Books, October 2004
Are We Spiritual Machines, Ray Kurzweil versus the Critics of Strong AI
	The Discovery Institute Press (2002)
The Age of Spiritual Machines, When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence
	Viking / Penguin Books, 1999
	Orion Books, 1999 (British Edition)
	Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, 1999 (German Edition)
	Allen & Unwin, 1999 (Australian Edition)
	12 Foreign editions including German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Hebrew
The 10% Solution for a Healthy Life,
	Crown Publishers, 1993
	Bookman Press (Australian Edition), 1993
	Crown Trade Paperbacks, 1995
The Age of Intelligent Machines,
	MIT Press, 1990
	MIT Press Paperback Edition, 1992
	Hanser Verlag (German Edition), 1993
	Conacyt (Spanish Edition), 1994
The Age of Intelligent Machines (the film),
	MIT Press, 1987

Journalism

"The Futurecast," A monthly column in Library Journal (1991 - 1993)

KurzweilAI.net: a leading web site for advanced technologies, providing about 1,000 articles and a daily electronic newsletter.

Honorary Degrees

2007	(scheduled) Honorary Doctorate of Science, Bloomfield College
2006	Honorary Doctorate of Science, DePaul University
2005	Honorary Doctorate of Science, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
2002	Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters, Landmark College
2000	Honorary Doctorate in Science and Humanities, Michigan State University
1993	Honorary Doctorate of Science, Dominican College
1991	Honorary Doctorate of Science, Queens College, City University of New York
1990	Honorary Doctorate of Science, New Jersey Institute of Technology
1989	Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters, Misericordia College
1989	Honorary Doctorate of Engineering, Merrimack College
1988	Honorary Doctorate of Science, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
1988	Honorary Doctorate of Science, Northeastern University
1987	Honorary Doctorate of Music, Berklee College of Music
1982	Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters, Hofstra University

Selected Awards and Honors

2006	Tech Museum Award in recognition of the Kurzweil – National Federation of the Blind Reader
2006	IEEE Alfred N. Goldsmith Award for Distinguished Contributions to Engineering Communication
2006	Inducted into the Electronic Design Hall of Fame
2005	Inducted into the CRN Industry Hall of Fame
2005	Lifeboat Foundation Guardian Award , for research in the field of bioterrorism
2002	Inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, founded by the U.S. Patent Office
2001	Platinum Album from the Canadian Recording Industry Association for contribution to the album “Spiritual Machines” by Our Lady Peace
2001	Second Annual American Composers Orchestra Award for the Advancement of New Music in America.
2000	Lemelson-MIT Prize. This $500,000 award is the largest in the U.S. in invention and innovation
1999	National Medal of Technology, the nation's highest honor in technology, to be presented by President Clinton in a White House Ceremony on March 14, 2000
1998	Stevie Wonder / SAP "Vision Award" for Product of the Year (for the Kurzweil 1000), a $150,000 prize (being used by the Kurzweil Foundation to provide scholarships to blind students)
1997	President’s Award, AHEAD (Association on Higher Education and Disability)
1996	Software Industry Achievement Award, Massachusetts Software Council
1995	Access Prize, American Foundation for the Blind
1994	Dickson Prize, Carnegie Mellon University’s top science prize
1994	Gordon Winston Award, Canadian National Institute for the Blind
1993	ACM Fellow Award, Association for Computing Machinery
1992	Massachusetts Quincentennial Award for Innovation and Discovery
1991	Louis Braille Award, Associated Services for the Blind
1990	Engineer of the Year Award, awarded by Design News magazine
1989	Founders Award, awarded by MIT to leading alumni entrepreneurs
1988	Inventor of the Year Award, awarded by MIT, the Boston Museum of Science and Boston Patent Law Association
1986	Honorary Chairman for Innovation, White House Conference on Small Business
1986	The 1986 White House Award for Entrepreneurial Excellence, President Reagan
1986	Distinguished Inventor Award, Intellectual Property Owners
1984	Best of the New Generation Award, Esquire Magazine
1984	"An American Portrait," CBS News
1983	Francis Joseph Campbell Award, American Library Association
1982	Computer Science Award, President Reagan
1982	Admitted to the Computer Industry Hall of Fame
1981	National Award, Johns Hopkins University, Personal Computing to Aid the Handicapped
1978	Grace Murray Hopper Award, Association for Computing Machinery
1977	Governor's Award, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis
1965	First Prize, Electronics and Communications, International Science Fair

Selected Book Awards and Honors

2005	New York Times Best Seller List, #1 ranking on Amazon in the categories of Science, Technology, and Philosophy: The Singularity is Near
1999	Literary Lights Prize, Boston Public Library: The Age of Spiritual Machines
1999	National Best Seller Lists, including #1 Ranking on Amazon in the categories of Science/Math and Artificial Intelligence, The Age of Spiritual Machines
1993	Regional BEST SELLER Lists: The 10% Solution for a Healthy Life
1991	Most Outstanding Computer Science Book of 1990 Award, Association of American Publishers: The Age of Intelligent Machines
1991	The Silicon Valley BEST SELLER List: The Age of Intelligent Machines
1991	MIT Press Best Seller: The Age of Intelligent Machines

Selected Film Awards

1988	Prize of the President of the Festival, International Film Festival of Czechoslovakia
1988	Technology Culture Award, International Festival of Scientific Films, Belgrade
1987	CINE Golden Eagle Award
1987	Gold Medal - Science Education, International Film and TV Festival of New York
1987	Creative Excellence Award, U.S. Industrial Film and Video Festival
1987	The Chris Plaque, Columbus International Film Festival

Partial List of Patents

U.S. 7,098,917	Generating visual art
U.S. 7,084,874	Virtual reality presentation
U.S. 6,941,262	Poet assistant’s graphical user interface (GUI)
U.S. 6,754,823	Technique for distributing software
U.S. 6,747,672	Virtual patient hot spots
U.S. 6,692,258	Patient simulator
U.S. 6,647,395	Poet personalities
U.S. 6,587,583	Compression / decompression algorithm for image documents having text, graphical and color content
U.S. 6,320,982	Compression / decompression algorithm for image documents having text, graphical and color content
U.S. 6,246,791	Compression / decompression algorithm for image documents having text, graphical and color content
U.S. 6,199,042	Reading system
U.S. 6,173,264	Reading system displaying scanned images with dual highlighting
U.S. 6,125,347	System for controlling multiple user application programs by spoken input
U.S. 6,052,663	Reading system which reads aloud from an image representation of a document
U.S. 6,033,224	Reading machine system for the blind having a dictionary
U.S. 6,014,464	Compression / decompression algorithm for image documents having text, graphical and color content
U.S. 5,875,428	Reading system displaying scanned images with dual highlights

 

Selected Keynote Addresses and Principal Lectures

2005-2006	Keynote addresses at many public, academic, government, and corporate events including the Explorer's club, TED2005, Cisco, Wired Magazine's Icon Speaker Series, NIH Director's Lecture, Google Zeitgeist, Microsoft, The World Bank, The Wall Street Journal & CNBC's World Healthcare Congress, Tech Review's Emerging Technologies Conference at M IT, The Council on Foreign Relations, BioAgenda, BIO-IT World, the MIT CEO Summit, Stanford University, The World Future Society, Pfizer, Lockheed Martin, Computer Science Corporation’s Leading Edge Forum, IBM Research Zurich, and many others.
2000-2004	Keynote Addresses at many leading conferences, including the Microsoft CEO Summit, Pop!Tech, the World Economic Forum, PC Expo, SIGGRAPH, Business Week, the Council on Foreign Relations, The American Psychiatric Association, Cowen, TED, ACM, ICASSP, Agenda, NY Music & Internet Expo, a joint keynote address with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak for SCP Capital, and many others.
1999	Presentations at Smithsonian, Tech Museum of Innovation (San Jose), Philadelphia Library, Johns Hopkins University, Seybold Conference, CSPAN, and many others
1997	Keynote Address, AHEAD (Association on Higher Education and Disability) National Conference, "The Role of Technology in Overcoming Disabilities"
1997	Panel on HAL’s Birthday, University of Illinois at Urbana
1996	Keynote Address, National Federation of the Blind - Canadian National Institute for the Blind, International Conference on Technology for the Blind, "What Technology can Contribute"
1996	President’s Forum Address, Entrepreneurship Institute Conference
1996	Keynote Address, Association for Education and Rehabilitation, Annual International Conference, "The End of Handicaps"
1996	Keynote Address, Medical Group Management Association, "Computer Science and Medicine in the Twenty-First Century"
1996	Keynote Address, American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science
1996	Lecture, American Conference Institute, "Developing Intellectual Property"
1995	Joint Keynote Address with (former) Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Gartner Group, Annual International Conference on Personal Computing (MidEast), "Turing’s Prophecy"
1995	Keynote Address, Turnaround Management Association, "Creating and Preserving Wealth in the Age of Knowledge"
1995	Keynote Address, IBM Computing Conference, "The Future of Computing Technology"
1995	Dickson Prize Lecture, Carnegie Mellon University, "Machine Intelligence: The First 80 Years (1940 - 2020)"
1995	Friedberg Lecture, Johns Hopkins University, "The Future of Machine Intelligence"
1995	Keynote Address, Jo Taylor Leadership Institute National Conference, American Foundation for the Blind, "The End of Handicaps"
1994	Presentation on the Wang Reorganization to the MIT Enterprise Forum
1994	Keynote Address, Gartner Group, Annual International Conferences on Personal Computing (U.S. and Europe), "The Future of Computing"
1994	Keynote Address, Anderson Consulting, Annual National Partners Meeting, "The Sixty-Four Squares of the Chessboard"
1994	Winston Gordon Prize Lecture, Canadian National Institute for the Blind National Conference, "The Future of Disabilities Technology"
1994	Keynote Address, President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities National Conference, "The End of Handicaps"
1994	Keynote Address, PC Enterprise Conference, "The Future of Personal Computing"
1993	Keynote Address, National Conference on Technology for the Blind, National Federation of the Blind and the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, "The Future of Technology for the Visually Impaired"
1993	Keynote Address, Technology and Learning Annual National Conference, National School Boards Association, "Learning and Technology"
1993	Keynote Address, Gartner Group, Annual National Conference on the Future of Information Technology, "The Computer in the Twenty-First Century"
1993	Keynote Address, Sematech National Conference, "The Future of Computer Technology"
1993	Keynote Address, U.S. Telephone, Annual National Meeting, "How to Save a Million American Lives a Year"
1993	Keynote Address, Dupont-Merck, Annual National Research and Development Conference, "The Future of Medicine"
1993	Keynote Address, Special Libraries Association, Annual National Meeting, "The Future of Books"
1993	Keynote Address, Intergraph Users Group Annual National Meeting, "Simulating Worlds Inside the Computer"
1993	Keynote Address, Oracle Users Group Annual National Meeting, "The Sixty-Four Squares of the Chessboard"
1993	Keynote Address, The 1993 Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Computer Science National Conference, "The Emergence of True Machine Intelligence in the Twenty- First Century"
1992	Keynote Address, Association for Information and Image Management, "A Strategy for Competitiveness"
1992	Keynote Address, The Sixth Annual International Literacy and Technology Conference, "Education in the Age of Intelligent Machines"
1992	Presentation with Senator Edward Kennedy, High Tech Issues Seminar, Kennedy School of Government, "Economic Competitiveness and Software"
1991	Keynote Address, Speech Tech Annual Conference, "Automatic Speech Recognition: The First Hundred Years (1920-2020)"
1989	Keynote Address, SHARE (Association of users of IBM mainframe computers) Annual National Convention, "The History of the Computer"
1989	Keynote Address, Art and Science Summer Festival, California Museum of Science and Industry, "Creativity: Where Art and Science Meet"
1989	Keynote Address, IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) National Conference on Artificial Intelligence Applications, "From the Mind's Eye to the Marketplace"
1987	Distinguished Lecturer, Harvard Business School, "Technology Innovation: From the Sandbox to the Showroom"
1987	Distinguished Lecturer, MIT, "Five Trends Shaping our Future World: Machine Intelligence, Parallel Processing, Silicon Compilation, Hardware to Software and Analog to Digital"
1987	Convocation Address, Berklee College of Music, "The Changing Face of Music Creation"
1986	Keynote Address on Innovation, White House Conference on Small Business, "Innovation and the Second Industrial Revolution"
1986	Principal presenter on "WorldNet," series of three satellite broadcasts on Artificial Intelligence to 15 Nations, United States Information Agency
1984	Keynote Address, IEEE National Conference on Computer Design, "The Coming Age of Intelligent Machines"
1982	Commencement Address, Hofstra University, "Visions of the Future"

Selected Papers, Articles and Chapters

Articles in a variety of magazines, including Scientific American, Psychology Today, Time Magazine, Business 2.0, Esquire, PC Magazine, Talk magazine, Forbes ASAP, CIO, and many others in the years 1999 - 2007 "Piece of Mind", Forbes ASAP, February 22, 1999 "The Big Crash of Convergence", Forbes ASAP, April 1997 "When Will HAL Understand What We Are Saying? Computer Speech Recognition and Understanding", Chapter in HAL’s Legacy, edited by David Stork (MIT Press 1996) "Why I am Building Reading Machines Again", Braille Monitor, 1996 "The Sixty-Four Squares of the Chessboard", Braille Monitor, 1994 "The End of Handicaps", World Congress on Technology, December, 1991 "A Strategy for Innovation in the Second Industrial Revolution", The Hudson Institute, October, 1990 "Beyond Pattern Recognition", Byte, December, 1989 "The Application of Large Vocabulary Speech Recognition and Knowledge Engineering to the Creation of Written Documents", Speech Tech, April, 1988 "A Large Vocabulary Voice Activated Word Processor", Speech Tech, April, 1987 "The Second Industrial Revolution", The Boston Museum of Science, January, 1987 "The Technology of the Kurzweil Voice Writer", Byte, March, 1986 "The Commercialization of Artificial Intelligence", Boston Computer Society, February, 1986 "What is Artificial Intelligence Anyway?", American Scientist, May-June, 1985 Testimony - Subcommittee, House Committee on Science and Technology, Rep. James Scheuer, (D-NY), Chairman, October 18, 1977, Washington, D.C. Testimony - House Subcommittee on Select Education, Rep. John Brademas (D-Ind.), Chairman, April 26, 1977, Washington, D.C. Testimony - Senate Subcommittee on Handicapped, Sen. Jennings Randolph, (D-W. Va.), Chairman, February 8, 1977, Washington, D.C. "A Technical Overview of Reading for the Blind", Proceedings, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Annual Meeting, Boston, MA, 1967 "International Analysis of Music", Tech Engineering News, February, 1967 "Automatic Perception of Speech", Tech Engineering News, October, 1966