Jeffrey Hawkins is a co-founder of the companies

Palm Computing Palm, Inc. was an American company that specialized in manufacturing personal digital assistants (PDAs) and various other electronics. They were the designer of the PalmPilot, the first PDA successfully marketed worldwide, as well as the Treo 60 ...

, where he co-created the

PalmPilot The PalmPilot Personal and PalmPilot Professional are the second generation of Palm PDA devices produced by Palm Inc (then a subsidiary of U.S. Robotics, later 3Com). These devices were launched on March 10, 1997. Accessories and pricing Pa ...

, and

Handspring Handspring may refer to: *Handspring (company), a company that made personal digital assistants *Handspring (gymnastics), a gymnastics move involving forward or backward rotation of the body *Rising handspring or nip-up A nip-up is an acrobatic ...

, where he was one of the creators of the Treo.Jeff Hawkins, ''On Intelligence'', p.28 He subsequently turned to work on

neuroscience Neuroscience is the science, scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a Multidisciplinary approach, multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, an ...

, founding the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience in 2002. In 2005 he founded Numenta, where he leads a team in efforts to reverse-engineer the neocortex and enable machine intelligence technology based on brain theory. He is the co-author of ''

On Intelligence ''On Intelligence: How a New Understanding of the Brain will Lead to the Creation of Truly Intelligent Machines'' is a 2004 book by Jeff Hawkins and Sandra Blakeslee. The book explains Hawkins' memory-prediction framework theory of the brain a ...

'' (2004), which explains his memory-prediction framework theory of the brain, and the author of ''A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence'' (2021).

Education

Hawkins attended

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

, where he received a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 1979.

Career

Hawkins joined GRiD Systems in 1982, where he developed

rapid application development Rapid application development (RAD), also called rapid application building (RAB), is both a general term for adaptive software development approaches, and the name for James Martin's method of rapid development. In general, RAD approaches to ...

(RAD) software called ''GRiDtask''. His interest in pattern recognition for speech and text input to computers led him to enroll in the biophysics program at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant un ...

in 1986. While there he patented a "pattern classifier" for handwritten text, but his PhD proposal on developing a theory of the neocortex was rejected, apparently because none of the professors there were working on anything similar. The setback led him back to GRiD, where, as vice president of research from 1988 to 1992, he developed their pen-based computing initiative that in 1989 spawned the

GRiDPad GRiDPad was a trademarked name for a series of pen computing tablets built by Grid Systems Corporation. The GRiDPad 1900, released in 1989, is regarded as the first commercially successful tablet computer. Jeff Hawkins went on to use the GRiD ...

, one of the first

tablet computer A tablet computer, commonly shortened to tablet, is a mobile device, typically with a mobile operating system and touchscreen display processing circuitry, and a rechargeable battery in a single, thin and flat package. Tablets, being com ...

s.''Pen Computing'' Jeff Hawkins 2
/ref> Hawkins founded Palm Inc., in January 1992. In 1998 he left the company along with Palm co-founders Donna Dubinsky and Ed Colligan to start

.''Pen Computing'' Jeff Hawkins 3
/ref> In March 2005, Hawkins, together with Dubinsky (Palm's original CEO) and

Dileep George Dileep George is an artificial intelligence and neuroscience researcher. Career George received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 2006 and was a visiting fellow at the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience ...

, founded Numenta, Inc.

Neuroscience

In 2002, after two decades of finding little interest from neuroscience institutions that he did not have a stake in, Hawkins founded the Redwood Neuroscience Institute in Menlo Park, California. In 2004, he co-authored ''

'' with

Sandra Blakeslee Sandra Blakeslee (born 1943) is an American science correspondent of over four decades for '' The New York Times'' and science writer, specializing in neuroscience. Together with neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran, she authored the 1998 popular ...

, laying out a theory on his " memory-prediction framework" of how the brain works. One of Hawkins' areas of interest is

cortical columns Cortex or cortical may refer to: Biology * Cortex (anatomy), the outermost layer of an organ ** Cerebral cortex, the outer layer of the vertebrate cerebrum, part of which is the ''forebrain'' *** Motor cortex, the regions of the cerebral cortex i ...

. In 2016, he hypothesized that cortical columns did not capture just a sensation, but also the relative location of that sensation, in three dimensions rather than two ( situated capture), in relation to what was around it. Hawkins explains, "When the brain builds a model of the world, everything has a location relative to everything else".Cade Metz ''The New York Times'' (15 October 2018) "A new view of how we think" pp.B1,B4
see: 'Clarity Over a Coffee Cup' In 2021, he published ''A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence'', a framework for intelligence and cortical computation. The book details the advances he and the Numenta team made that led to the discovery of how the brain understands the world and what it means to be intelligent. It also details how the "thousand brains" theory can affect machine intelligence, and how an understanding of the brain impacts the threats and opportunities facing humanity. It also offers a theory of what's missing in current AI.

Board and institute memberships

In 2003, Hawkins was elected as a member of the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...

"for the creation of the hand-held computing paradigm and the creation of the first commercially successful example of a hand-held computing device." He also serves on the Advisory Board of the

Secular Coalition for America The Secular Coalition for America is an advocacy group located in Washington D.C. It describes itself as "representing the interests of atheists, humanists, freethinkers, agnostics, and other nontheistic Americans." The Secular Coalition has chap ...

where he has advised on the acceptance and inclusion of nontheism in American life.

Books

* Hawkins, Jeff with Sandra Blakeslee (2004). ''

'', Times Books, Henry Holt and Co. . * Hawkins, Jeff (2021). ''A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence'', Basic Books. .

References

External links

Numenta

Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hawkins, Jeff 1957 births Living people American computer businesspeople Artificial intelligence researchers Businesspeople from the San Francisco Bay Area Businesspeople in computing Cornell University College of Engineering alumni Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Palm, Inc. People from Huntington, New York Scientists from the San Francisco Bay Area University of California, Berkeley alumni