Kristen Nygaard
Professor Emeritus Kristen Nygaard (1926-2002), Norwegian Mathematician, computer programming language pioneer and politician.
Nygaard was born on August 27, 1926, in Oslo, and died on Saturday June 10, 2002, after suffering a heart attack.
Internationally he is acknowledged as the co-inventor of Object-oriented programming and the programming language Simula with Ole-Johan Dahl in the 1960s.
These two pioneers have been recognised for Simula and the paradigm shift that it introduced. They were awarded the IEEE John von Neumann Medal in 2001 and the Turing Award in 2002, considered the 'Nobel prize' in Computer Science.
The computer systems that form the foundation of the modern information society are among the most complex things humans have created. Through his ground-breaking research Nygaard made it possible to manage that complexity.
Kristen Nygaard received his Masters degree in Mathematics from the University of Oslo in 1956. He worked for the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment until 1960, then for many years with the Norwegian Computing Center before becoming a Professor at the University of Oslo.
Although the original use for Simula was a physics simulation for a military laboratory, workers at the Norwegian Iron and Metal Union approached Mr. Nygaard, in the late 1960's with concerns about computers in displacing and altering their jobs. Mr. Nygaard began working with them, pioneering an approach that became known as participatory design (see Human-Computer Interaction), in which workers help design new technologies in the workplace.
He taught in both Denmark and at the University of Oslo, where he was a professor emeritus until he retired in 1996.
In the 1970s, Mr. Nygaard's research interests increasingly turned to the impact of technology on the Labor Movement, and he became involved in other political, social and environmental issues. He was the first chairman of the environment protection committee of the [[Norwegian Association for the Protection of Nature]]. He was also the Norwegian representative for the [[Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development]]'s (OECD) activities on information technology.
He also helped run an experimental program to create humane living conditions for alcoholics.
In the mid 1960s he became a member of the National Executive Committee of the Norwegian party Venstre, a left-wing non-socialist party, and chairman of that party's strategy committee. In 1988 he became chairman of a group that successfully opposed Norway's membership in the European Union.
Nygaard helped spearhead the successful campaign against Norway's membership in the 15-nation European Union, which involved holding together a highly divergent group of opponents, including conservative farmers and leftist trade unionists.
Friends and political foes alike gave him credit for the EU opponents' victory in an October 1994 referendum, when Norwegians voted 53 percent to 47 percent against membership.
External links
- In Memoriam Kristen Nygaard (1926-2002)
http://www.ifi.uio.no/in_memoriam_kristen/
- Kristen Nygaard's homepage at Department of Informatics, University of Oslo