MIT Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

"As We May Think" --

A Celebration of Vannevar Bush's 1945 Vision,
An Examination of What Has Been Accomplished,
and What Remains to Be Done

Vannevar Bush

Information

Broadcasting

Invitation

As you probably know, this year marks the 50th anniversary of Vannevar Bush's landmark paper, "As We May Think," published first in the Atlantic Monthly and subsequently in Life magazine. In honor of Dr. Bush's vision there will be a research symposium held at MIT, his academic home, on October 12 & 13, 1995. You are cordially invited to attend this "posthumous Festschrift".

Our outstanding collection of speakers will discuss how they were influenced in their own work by Bush's vision and its technical legacy, what parts of the vision were realized and how, and what outstanding problems remain to be solved before the vision can be fully realized. Our tentative program, which we plan to broadcast on the Internet via MBone, is as follows:

Thursday, October 12

 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.     Opening Remarks
10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.     Douglas Engelbart
11:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.     Coffee Break
11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.     Theodor Nelson
12:30 p.m. -  1:30 p.m.     Lunch
 1:30 p.m. -  2:30 p.m.     Robert Kahn
 2:30 p.m. -  3:30 p.m.     Tim Berners-Lee
 3:30 p.m. -  4:00 p.m.     Coffee Break
 4:00 p.m. -  5:00 p.m.     Michael Lesk
 5:00 p.m. -  6:30 p.m.     Tour of Bush Memorabilia
 7:00 p.m.                  Dinner and Banquet Speech by Douglas Adams

Friday, October 13

 9:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.     Nicholas Negroponte
10:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.     Raj Reddy
11:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.     Coffee Break
11:30 p.m. - 12:30 p.m.     Lee Sproull
12:30 p.m. -  2:00 p.m.     Lunch 
 2:00 p.m. -  3:00 p.m.     Alan Kay
 3:00 p.m. -  3:30 p.m.     Closing Remarks

We are running the symposium on as low a budget as possible and will have sponsorship only for speakers' expenses. The rest of the program will have to be self-sustaining. We expect we can keep the fee, to cover our expenses, as low as $250.00. We have reserved a limited number of rooms (30) at the nearby Hyatt (617-492-1234) and urge you to reserve travel and housing for this very popular time of year, the foliage season, at your earliest convenience. Since we're restricting attendance to a maximum of 250 in order to preserve a workshop atmosphere, it is important that you let us know as soon as possible whether you plan to attend. We also welcome suggestions for colleagues who might like to attend. Please send their email and physical mail address and a phrase on who they are. Note that we are not announcing this symposium publicly since it is by invitation only. Please address any inquiries and responses to:

Lisa Manekofsky
Administrative Coordinator
Brown University
Box 1910
Providence, RI 02912
ljm@cs.brown.edu

You may find the following two references of interest:

• "From Memex to Hypertext: Vannevar Bush and the Mind's Machine" (James M. Nyce, Paul Kahn, Academic Press, 1991) includes reference text for both the Life and Atlantic Monthly versions of "As We May Think", as well as the last manuscript draft of "Memex II", dated August 1957.
• An HTML text of the Atlantic Monthly version, reproduced with permission per D. Duchier, can be found at http://www.isg.sfu.ca/~duchier/misc/vbush/.

We look forward to your presence at what promises to be a highly stimulating symposium.

Andries van Dam, Program Chair
Brown University
Department of Computer Science
avd@cs.brown.edu

Paul Penfield, Jr., MIT Host
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
penfield@mit.edu