Computer Visionary Alan Kay joins Diamond Technology Partners' board of directors

Business Wire, July 30, 1996

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 30, 1996--Diamond Technology Partners announced today that legendary computer scientist Alan Kay, Ph.D. has joined the company's board of directors.

With the addition of Kay to the board of directors, Diamond has four directors from inside the company and three from outside the company. This marks the first corporate board that Kay has agreed to join.

"Alan is recognized as one of the most influential people of the information age," said Mel Bergstein, chairman of Diamond. "Alan is an invaluable resource. His contribution to our board will be instrumental in keeping Diamond ahead of the technology curve."

Kay noted, "Diamond provides a unique set of services that combine strategic planning with managerial support -- a really important combination for companies that are determined to prosper in the fast- approaching 21st century."

To celebrate his appointment, Diamond will host an invitation-only presentation in Chicago that evening for area business leaders in which Kay will discuss his views on technological changes and the pervasive impact of these changes on future business. Known throughout the computer industry as a visionary whose ideas often materialize years after his predictions, Kay is credited with the conception of the modern laptop computer, conceived in 1968, and the invention of the now ubiquitous "overlapping windows" interface and object-oriented programming, the most important programming technology of our time.

A founding principal of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) that revolutionized computing in the 1970s and 1980s by creating one of the first personal computers (the forerunner of workstations and the Macintosh), Kay led one of the groups that together developed the SmallTalk object-oriented development environment, the overlapping window interface, Ethernet, laser printing and network client/servers.

Kay received a doctorate in computer science from the University of Utah in 1969 (for inventing the first graphical object-oriented personal computer); was part of the ARPA group that developed ARPAnet (now the Internet); joined the artificial intelligence project at Stanford in 1969; and helped found PARC in 1970. After 12 years at PARC, he served as chief scientist for Atari. As an Apple Fellow since 1984, Kay has spent the last decade in the research and development of new computer-based media for representing "powerful ideas" and helping people learn them.

Always at the forefront of technological change, Kay continues to forge pervasive ideas that will shape business and society in the 21st century. He currently is researching the use of technology in education, and is helping to design a new kind of scripting system for children, parents and teachers to use on the Internet.

Diamond Technology Partners is a business consulting firm specializing in the synthesis of business and technology for leading corporations in the United States. Diamond provides innovative solutions to today's most challenging business issues by combining strategy and structure, process and operations, and technology. Diamond currently has more than 150 employees in offices in Chicago, Ill. (headquarters), and Cleveland, Ohio.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Kay will give the invitation-only presentation, "1996-2006: Predicting How Technology Will Shape Tomorrow's Business," at the Four Seasons Hotel, 120 East Delaware Ave., 6 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 1. A cocktail reception will follow the presentation.

Media are invited to attend the formal presentation and will have an opportunity to arrange an interview with Dr. Kay for the following morning. Please RSVP to Julia Wallace, 312-255-5055.

CONTACT: Julia Wallace, Diamond Technology Partners,

312-255-5055, wallacej(at sign)diamtech.com.