Topics: Pioneers : Kurzweil, Raymond

Raymond C. Kurzweil is a pioneer in several areas of the computer industry involving mainly artificial intelligence (AI). He was the main developer of many firsts: omni-font optical character recognition (OCR) software, text-to-speech synthesizer and print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, charge coupled device (CCD) flat-bed scanner, commercially marketed large-vocabulary speech recognition software, electronic keyboard music synthesizer able to emulate the sounds of orchestra instruments such as grand pianos.He founded and developed nine successful businesses in: OCR, speech recognition, reading technology, virtual reality, financial investment, cybernetic art, music synthesis, and other areas of AI.He has written books on health, AI, transhumanism, and the technological singularity. He is a recognized leader in future studies.