STEM-Net is pleased to announce that Dr. Seymour Papert will deliver the keynote address to participants of this year's Hook Line & Net conference in Stephenville on July 7, 1999.

Seymour Papert is a mathematician and one of the early pioneers of Artificial Intelligence. He is internationally recognized as the seminal thinker about ways in which computers can change learning.

Born and educated in South Africa, where he participated actively in the anti-apartheid movement, Papert pursued mathematical research at Cambridge University from 1954-1958, and he worked with Jean Piaget at the University of Geneva from 1958-1963.

It was this collaboration with Piaget that led Papert to consider using mathematics in the service of understanding how children learn and think.

In the early 1960's, Dr. Papert came to MIT where, with Marvin Minsky, he founded the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and co-authored their seminal work, Perceptrons (1970).

Dr. Papert is the inventor of the Logo Computer Language, the first and most important effort to give children control over new technology.

He is the author of Mindstorms: Children, Computers and Powerful Ideas (1980), and The Children's Machine: Rethinking School in the age of the Computer (1992), as well as numerous articles about mathematics, Artificial Intelligence, education, learning and thinking. In 1985, Papert helped found the Media Arts and Sciences program at the MIT Media Laboratory, and in 1988 he was named LEGO Professor of Learning Research, a chair created for him.

Papert's advice on technology based educational methods has been sought internationally by governments and government agencies in Africa, Latin America, Europe and Asia. In the United States he is often called to testify before Presidential and Congressional Committees.

His work on education has been recognized by many awards including the Marconi International Fellowship Award, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Software Publishers' Association, and the Smithsonian/ComputerWorld award for Leadership in Education. Among other projects, Papert is currently serving as the Chairman of the Advisory Board to MaMaMedia, a New York-based children's media company, MaMaMedia

For more information about Dr. Papert and his work, writings and life please visit: Connected Family
Bill Jameson, Assistant Director STEM-Net
Conference Chair, Hook Line & Net '99: Create I.T!