Today is a leap day, which means there’s a smaller population to choose from in selecting a birthday honoree. Nevertheless, many people have been born on February 29, including Seymour Papert, in 1928 in South Africa. Papert provided a whole generation of kids with a fun and interesting introduction to computing: the Logo language.
Papert remained in South Africa until he received a PhD in mathematics in 1952. He was an anti-apartheid activist, and finally fled to England. There he earned a second doctorate (also in math) at the University of Cambridge. He went directly into research, and worked at a number of universities in England, France, and Switzerland before becoming the co-director of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in 1967 (that was about the second wave of AI hype; we’re currently in either the fourth or fifth).
His specialty was learning theories, which he had worked on with a mentor, Jean Piaget in Geneva. Piaget said at the time that “no one understands my ideas as well as Papert.” At MIT Papert founded the Epistemology and Learning Research Group at MIT — it’s still there, but now it’s called the MIT Media Lab. During that era he co-developed the Logo language, which is designed to be simple enough for children to learn, but is capable of advanced functionality. A key part of Logo — and the most fun part of it — is the “Logo Turtle.” It’s a little mobile robot that responds to Logo commands. Children can use Logo and the Turtle to solve problems visually by programming — and without even realizing they’re learning. Logo and the Turtle were the inspiration for Lego Mindstorms robot kits, and “Mindstorms” is from the title of Papert’s 1980 book.
Papert was also a central figure in the One Laptop Per Child initiative, begun in 2005. A simple, rugged, low-cost laptop was designed and manufactured for distribution to children around the world. It had an interface that worked regardless of whether the user was literate in English — or any language. The goal was to produce a working system for $100. The project was eventually shut down because of the difficulty of achieving the $100 goal, as well as (apparently) strong opposition from Bill Gates. Nevertheless, more than 3 million OLPC laptops were shipped to children around the world.
Papert is known for revolutionizing AI, learning theory, and the integration of learning and technology. His OLPC was one of the inspirations for inexpensive laptops including Chromebooks and the (very unlamented) “Eee PCs” (remember those little dumpster fires?).
In 2006, Papert was attending the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction conference in Hanoi when he was hit by a motor scooter while crossing a street. He was in critical condition for weeks, and it took him at least two years to recover because of a brain injury — and his rehabilitation used the principles of experiential learning that he had developed. He never completely recovered, and passed away in 2016 at the age of 88. Or, if you only count actual birthdays, 22. In Logo you could calculate it both ways.
