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Seymour Papert Institute

300 Pleasant Street, P.O. Box 387, Blue Hill, Maine 04614

Seymour Papert: Biography

For more than forty years, Seymour Papert has been a bold, visionary thinker in developing new understanding about how children learn and think. The Seymour Papert Institute and the Learning Barn in Blue Hill, Maine are capstones for his long and distinguished career in cybernetics, artificial intelligence, applied mathematics, digital technology and education.

A native of South Africa and an anti-apartheid activist in the early 1950’s, Papert was in his early twenties when he joined the faculty of Witwaterstrand University. In 1954-8 he conducted mathematical research at Cambridge University in England and at the Institut Henri Poincare in Paris. At the same time he began to make the connections between mathematics and the nascent fields of artificial intelligence and cognitive science which led to an invitation by Jean Piaget to join his Centre d’Epistemologie Genetique in Geneva and four years devoted to studying how children learn.

An invitation in 1964 to MIT as a research associate led to a faculty appointment first as Professor of Mathematics and later as Professor of Learning Research. At MIT he helped found the Artificial Intelligence Lab with Marvin Minsky. He developed the concept for the computer language, LOGO, and new ideas for computers and education with major grants from the National Science Foundation. The LOGO language has been adopted world-wide and adapted for the use of new technologies for development in Africa and Latin American countries as well as in Europe and the USA. With Alan Kay, Papert pioneered early ideas in the use of computers by children that led to the development by Kay of the first concept for a laptop computer. In 1985, he was a founding member of the Media Laboratory at MIT with which he keeps an active association since his change to emeritus status. In recognition of his leadership, the Lego Company endowed the Lab with the “Lego-Papert Chair of Learning Research”.

Papert is the author or co-author of many books including Perceptrons: An Introduction to Computational Geometry (1972, with Marvin Minsky), Mindstorms: Children, Computers and Powerful Ideas (1980), The Children’s Machine (1993), and The Connected Family (1996). Mindstorms has been considered a seminal work on the subject of computers and education.

He has been the recipient of many awards and now holds the title of Distinguished Visiting Scientist at the University of Maine Department of Computer Science. In October 2001 Newsweek magazine named Papert as one of the nation’s ten top innovators in education; in 2005 the magazine Technology and Learning placed him at the top of its list of innovators in educational technology.

Although his principal work has been in the US, Papert has led innovations in the use of digital technology in many countries. In 1981-3 he spent two years at the invitation of the French government on developing a center for informatics and development. In the mid-80’s he worked with President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica to develop a nationwide program of intensive computer use throughout the public education system. which, continues to serve as a model for large-scale deployment of technology in public education. Papert has worked with innovators in Russia, Japan and Thailand as well as in other Latin American countries.

Since 1970 Papert has been advocating school policies based on a minimum of a computer per student at all age levels. He was the primary influence in convincing Maine Governor Angus King to boldly establish Maine as the first state in the world to embrace one-to-one computing. In 2005 he joined Nicholas Negroponte and Joe Jacobson in launching the OLPC Association, a not-for-profit corporation with the mission of forcing the price of laptops down to a level that would make “one laptop per child” feasible on a global scale.

Seymour Papert established the Learning Barn and the Seymour Papert Institute in 1999 in Blue Hill, Maine. A non-profit organization, the Institute is an advocate for new ideas in learning and technology and provides consultant services on new approaches to using technology for learning.