Adam Dunkels (born 28 May 1978) is a Swedish

computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...

, software engineer, entrepreneur, and founder of Thingsquare, an

Internet of things Internet of things (IoT) describes devices with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other communication networks. The IoT encompasse ...

(IoT) product development business. His father was professor of mathematics Andrejs Dunkels. His mother was professor Kerstin Vännman. His work is mainly focused on

computer network A computer network is a collection of communicating computers and other devices, such as printers and smart phones. In order to communicate, the computers and devices must be connected by wired media like copper cables, optical fibers, or b ...

ing technology and distributed communication for small

embedded system An embedded system is a specialized computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is e ...

s and devices and

wireless sensor network Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) refer to networks of spatially dispersed and dedicated sensors that monitor and record the physical conditions of the environment and forward the collected data to a central location. WSNs can measure environmental ...

s on the Internet. He attended the

Swedish Institute of Computer Science RISE SICS (previously Swedish Institute of Computer Science) is a leading research institute for applied information and communication technology in Sweden, founded in 1985. It explores the digitalization of products, services and businesses. In ...

where he earned Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Master of Science (M.S.) in 2001, and a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in 2007. Dunkels is best known to the embedded community as the author of the uIP (micro-IP) and lwIP TCP/IP

Internet protocol suite The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suite are ...

(stacks). He invented protothreads and the

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

Contiki Contiki is an operating system for networked, memory-constrained systems with a focus on low-power wireless Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Contiki is used for systems for street lighting, sound monitoring for smart cities, radiation monitori ...

. The ''MIT Technology Review'' placed him on the

TR35 The Innovators Under 35 is a peer-reviewed annual award and listicle published by ''MIT Technology Review'' magazine, naming the world's top 35 innovators under the age of 35. at '' Technology Review'' with lists of winners at technologyreview.com ...

list of world's top 35 innovators under 35, in 2009. His book ''Interconnecting Smart Objects with IP: the Next Internet'', co-authored with Jean-Philippe Vasseur, and with a foreword by

Vint Cerf Vinton Gray Cerf (; born June 23, 1943) is an American Internet pioneer and is recognized as one of "the fathers of the Internet", sharing this title with TCP/IP co-developer Robert Kahn. He has received honorary degrees and awards that inclu ...

, was published in 2010. He is a founder of the Internet Protocol for Smart Objects Alliance (

IPSO Alliance The Internet Protocol for Smart Objects (IPSO) Alliance was an international technical standards organization promoting the Internet Protocol (IP) for what it calls "smart object" communications. The IPSO Alliance was a non-profit organization f ...

), which promotes IP networking for smart objects such as embedded systems and wireless sensors, and author of the alliance's white paper. Dunkels received the 2008

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional membe ...

(ACM) SIGOPS EuroSys Roger Needham PhD award for his PhD thesis "Programming Memory-Constrained Networked Embedded Systems". He has won an ERCIM Cor Baayen award.

Networked embedded software

Many of Dunkels's small implementations are used in commercial products from companies, including Asea Brown Boveri (ABB),

Altera Altera Corporation is a manufacturer of programmable logic devices (PLDs) headquartered in San Jose, California. It was founded in 1983 and acquired by Intel in 2015 before becoming independent once again in 2025 as a company focused on developm ...

BMW Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, trading as BMW Group (commonly abbreviated to BMW (), sometimes anglicised as Bavarian Motor Works), is a German multinational manufacturer of vehicles and motorcycles headquartered in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Th ...

Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, m ...

Ericsson (), commonly known as Ericsson (), is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Ericsson has been a major contributor to the development of the telecommunications industry and is one ...

, GE,

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California ...

(HP), Volvo Technology, and

Xilinx Xilinx, Inc. ( ) was an American technology and semiconductor company that primarily supplied programmable logic devices. The company is renowned for inventing the first commercially viable field-programmable gate array (FPGA). It also pioneered ...

. They include: *

Protothreads A protothread is a low-overhead mechanism for concurrent programming. Protothreads function as Call stack, stackless, lightweight Thread (computer science), threads, or coroutines, providing a blocking context cheaply using minimal memory per proto ...

* uIP (micro-IP) *

* lwIP (lightweight IP) * uVNC * Miniweb * phpstack * μBASIC

References

External links

*
The uIP TCP/IP stackDr Dobb's Journal: Inside the uIP Stack
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dunkels, Adam Luleå University of Technology alumni Living people 1978 births Swedish computer scientists Swedish technology company founders People from Luleå