Lee Felsenstein

Lee Felsenstein learned electronics as a teenager and graduated from UC Berkeley in 1972, after having dropped out for four years to work as a design engineer. While at Berkeley he became involved in the underground press and there developed an understanding of the effects of media on the structure of society. This led him in 1970 to the conclusion that networked computers would be highly desirable as a medium for a better society, and he then began to consider how to create such networks.

After graduation he fell in with a small crowd of people attempting to live science fiction by getting computers accessible to ordinary people, and published a mimeographed specification for a "convival cybernetic device" in 1974. In 1975 he learned of the first meeting of what was to become the Homebrew Club, and at the fourth meeting stepped up to lead the gatherings, using the opportunity to impose a structure that applied some of his ideas about media. From then until the final Homebrew meeting in December 1986 he served as "toastmaster".

Along the way he designed several personal computers, the first kit modem, and the Osborne "portable" computer. He has run his own design business and was part of Interval Research Corporation through its 8-year lifespan. He has 12 patents and continues to work as a design engineer on new products.

Most recently Lee has been working to define the "Fair Trade Technology" industry, which makes telecommunications and networked computers available at the village level in the developing world. He lives on the San Francisco Peninsula.

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