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Seymour Aubrey Papert (February 29, 1928 – July 31, 2016) was a South African-born American mathematician, computer scientist, and educator, who spent most of his career teaching and researching at MIT.[2][3][4] He was one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence, and of the constructionist movement in education.[5] He was co-inventor, with Wally Feurzeig, of the Logo programming language. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Papert)
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In 1967, he became professor of applied math and was made co-director of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory by its founding director Professor Marvin Minsky. Wally Feurzeig and Seymour Papert developed "LOGO." A program called "body-syntonic reasoning" where students could understand the turtle's motion by imagining what they would do if they were the turtle. It introduces children to basic computer programming concepts.
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Seymour Papert worked with the a Swiss clinical psychologist known for his pioneering work in child development, Jean Piaget at the University of Geneva from 1959 to 1963. Here is a video (in french) talking about their work in mathematics. (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2zg28t)
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Papert won a Guggenheim fellowship. an annual award to those " "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts."
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In 1981, Papert along with several others in the Logo group at MIT, started Logo Computer Systems Inc. (LCSI), of which he was Board Chair for over 20 years.
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Won a Marconi International fellowship. "to honor significant contributions in science and technology, awarding the Marconi Prize and an annual $100,000 grant to a living scientist who has made advances in communication technology that benefits mankind."
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Seymour Papert: Excerpt from the MIT Media Lab Interactive Videodisc, explains the cleverness of having children "play" with technology as they learn.
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Won the Smithsonian Award from Computerworld. for using "technology to produce beneficial changes for society."
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Seymour Papert from the MIT Media Laboratory wrote a book based off the concept that intended to enable children to explore any situation and engage them completely. Although Papert never clearly defined the Knowledge Machine, one interpretation is a virtual reality device that allows the user to slip into any situation and have a simulated experience of that situation. https://www.amazon.com/Childrens-Machine-Rethinking-School-Computer/dp/0465010636
