American computer scientist and engineer

Ray Kurzweil

Raymond Kurzweil is an American computer scientist, author, entrepreneur, futurist, and inventor. He is involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), text-to-speech synthesis, speech recognition technology and electronic keyboard instruments. He has written books on health technology, artificial intelligence (AI), transhumanism, the technological singularity, and futurism. Kurzweil is an advocate for the futurist and transhumanist movements and gives public talks to share his optimistic outlook on life extension technologies and the future of nanotechnology, robotics, and biotechnology.

Born

1948

February 12

Died

Living

Era

1940s

Country

—

About

Ray, in brief

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Life timeline

Key dates

1948 Born

Also on February 12

What else happened on this day, through history

1059 Upon reaching Rome, Bruno of Toul is elected as pope Leo IX and starts initiating reforms.
1096 Pope Urban II confirms the foundation of the abbey of La Roë under Robert of Arbrissel as a community of canons regular.
1404 The Italian professor Galeazzo di Santa Sofia performs the first post-mortem autopsy for the purposes of teaching and demonstration at the Heiligen–Geist Spital in Vienna.
1429 English forces under Sir John Fastolf defend a supply convoy carrying rations to the army besieging Orléans in the Battle of the Herrings.

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The world in 1948

When Ray arrived

april 1 Cold War: Communist forces respond to the introduction of the Deutsche Mark by attempting to force the western powers to withdraw from Berlin.
april 1 Faroe Islands gain autonomy from Denmark.
april 13 In an ambush, 78 Jewish doctors, nurses and medical students from Hadassah Hospital, and a British soldier, are massacred by Arabs in Sheikh Jarrah. This event came to be known as the Hadassah medical convoy massacre.
april 16 The Organization of European Economic Co-operation is formed.

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Same-day contemporaries

Also born on February 12

Carl Reichenbach 1788–1869 German chemist and philosopher (died 1869) Charles Darwin 1809–1882 English biologist and theorist (born 1809) David D. Friedman 1945– American economist, physicist, and scholar Dayananda Saraswati 1824–1883 Indian monk and philosopher, founded Arya Samaj (died 1883) John L. Lewis 1880– American miner and union leader (died 1969) John Michael Higgins 1963– American actor and comedian Judd Winick 1970– American author and illustrator Mike Posner 1988– American singer-songwriter and producer Naseem Hamed 1974– English boxer

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Same-year contemporaries

Also born in 1948

Art Spiegelman 1948– Swedish-American cartoonist and critic Buck Martinez 1948– American baseball player and manager Carl Weathers 1948–2024 American football player and actor (born 1948) Carlos Salinas de Gortari 1948– Mexican economist and politician, 53rd President of Mexico Christopher Guest 1948– British-American actor and director Claude Jade 1948–2006 French actress (born 1948) Cliff Thorburn 1948– Canadian snooker player Davíð Oddsson 1948– Icelandic politician, 21st Prime Minister of Iceland (died 2026) Dayle Haddon 1948– Canadian model and actress (died 2024)

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Keep going

More to explore

Ray's birthday February 12 Ray's zodiac Aquarius When Ray arrived 1948