Douglas Carl Engelbart (January 30, 1925 – July 2, 2013) was an American
engineer and
inventor, and an early computer and
Internet pioneer. He is best known for his work on founding the field of
human–computer interaction, particularly while at his
Augmentation Research Center Lab in
SRI International, resulting in the invention of the
computer mouse, and the development of
hypertext, networked computers, and precursors to
graphical user interfaces. These were demonstrated at
The Mother of All Demos in 1968.
Engelbart's Law, the observation that the intrinsic rate of human performance is exponential, is named after him.