Randy Pausch, the computer scientist from Carnegie Mellon Univ, whose “The Last Lecture” speech on September 18, 2007 at Carnegie Mellon University inspired so many (including yours truly) had died yesterday night.
Watch Pausch’s last lecture on youtube – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji5_MqicxSo
From Carnegie Mellon Univ press release:
Celebrated in his field for co-founding the pioneering Entertainment
Technology Center and for creating the innovative educational software
tool known as “Alice,” Pausch earned his greatest worldwide fame for his
inspirational “Last Lecture.”
That life-affirming lecture, a call to his students and colleagues to go
on without him and do great things, was delivered at Carnegie Mellon on
Sept. 18, 2007, a few weeks after Pausch learned he had just months to
live. Titled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” the humorous and
heartfelt talk was videotaped, and unexpectedly spread around the world
via the Internet. Tens of millions of people have since viewed video
footage of it.
Pausch, who had regularly won awards in the field of computer science,
spent the final months of his life being lauded in arenas far beyond his
specialty. ABC News declared him one of its three “Persons of the Year”
for 2007. TIME magazine named him to its list of the 100 most
influential people in the world. On thousands of Web sites, people wrote
essays about what they had learned from him. His book based on the
lecture became a #1 bestseller internationally, translated into 30
languages.
