Douglas Carl Engelbart (born January 30, 1925) is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 inventor, and an early computer and internet pioneer. He is best known for his work on the challenges of human-computer interaction, resulting in the invention of the computer mouse, and the development of hypertext

Hypertext

Hypertext is text displayed on a computer or other electronic device with references to other text that the reader can immediately access, usually by a mouse click or keypress sequence. Apart from running text, hypertext may contain tables, images and other presentational devices. Hypertext is the...

, networked computers, and precursors to GUIs

Graphical user interface

In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...

. He is a committed, vocal proponent of the development and use of computers and networks

Computer network

A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow sharing of resources and information....

 to help cope with the world’s increasingly urgent and complex problems.

Engelbart embedded a set of organizing principles in his lab, which he termed "bootstrapping strategy".