Kristen Nygaard

Updated: 12/30/2019 by Computer Hope
Kristen Nygaard

Name: Kristen Nygaard

Born: August 27, 1926, in Norway

Death: August 10, 2002 (Age: 75)

Computer-related contributions

  • Norwegian computer scientist, programming language pioneer and politician.
  • Together with Ole-Johan Dahl, he developed SIMULA I (1961–1965) and SIMULA-67, the first object-oriented programming languages. These languages introduced the concepts of objects, classes, inheritance, virtual quantities and multi-threaded program execution, the foundations of modern-day OOP.

Honors and awards

  • A. M. Turing Award by the ACM (2002).
  • IEEE John von Neumann Medal by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (2001).
  • Made Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav by the King of Norway (2000).