Roy Amara

Roy Amara, president emeritus of the Institute for the Future, died December 29th. Roy was a Stanford-trained engineer who worked at SRI before becoming president of the Institute in 1970, after it relocated to Northern California. The Institute turns 40 this spring, and Roy was its president for fully half of its life: he held the post until 1990.

Remarkably, not only have the programs that Roy helped start-- the Ten Year Forecast, for example-- survived to this day, but the research agenda he helped shape is still very much with us. In the early days of his tenure the Institute conducted studies of the impact of the Arpanet on scientific research, and the future of groupware. Today we're still exploring the future of science, and are using the collaborative tools that we once forecast. There aren't many futurists whose work has that kind of longevity.

Jacques Vallee, who was at the Institute in the early years of Roy's presidency, recalls

Roy was a real prince of tact and understanding, yet able to manage crises very effectively without an angry word or a threatening move. He built consensus through gentle suggestions and patience, and always gave the credit and limelight to others - a real lesson to today's interrupt-driven, media-hungry CEOs!

One of the little-known facts of Roy's career was his role at SRI where he managed Doug Englebart's attempts to get his early projects funded. Always in the background, Roy was single-handedly responsible for getting Doug's proposals into a shape where they could be seriously considered by AFOSR, which launched Doug's ARC project. The rest is history.

Even though I've written about the history of the computer mouse, I didn't know this about Roy; and even though Roy knew about my work on the mouse, he never mentioned his role in getting Engelbart funded. Even decades later, he remained modest about his contribution to one of the most famous inventions of the twentieth century.