How the Galt/Preston Rotary Club Saved My Life in 1952
Dr. Jim Mitchell is a Canadian-born computer scientist who has worked on programming language design and implementation, interactive programming systems, dynamic interpretation and compilation, document preparation systems, user interface design, distributed transactional file systems, distributed, object-oriented operating systems, supercomputer design, silicon photonics, and microchip packaging. He began working with computers in 1962 while a student at the University of Waterloo, where he and three other undergraduates developed a fast compiler for the Fortran programming language known as WATFOR.
Dr. Mitchell has had an extensive career in computer-related endeavors including senior programmer at Berkeley Computer Corporation; Xerox Fellow at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center; Senior Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge Computing Laboratory; Director of Research and Development for Acorn Computers (U.K.); Vice President of Technology & Architecture for Java in the Sun Microsystems JavaSoft Division; Chief Technology Officer, Java Consumer & Embedded products; Vice President and Director of Sun Microsystems Laboratories; and Principal Investigator on the Sun/DARPA HPCS (High Productivity Computing Systems) program. When Oracle Corporation acquired Sun Microsystems in 2010, he became Vice President of Photonics, Interconnects, and Packaging in Oracle Labs.
Dr. Mitchell graduated from the University of Waterloo in Canada in Mathematics & Physics, and received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie-Mellon University. He was awarded the J.W. Graham Medal in Computing and Innovation from the University of Waterloo, the Fr. Norm Choate, CR, Distinguished Alumni Award from St. Jerome's University, is author or co-author of over 46 papers, and co-inventor on nine U.S. patents. Since 2013, he has been on the Board of Directors of the Shurl & Kay Curci Foundation, which funds basic research in the life sciences.
Without the Rotary Club I Wouldn't Be Here
Abstract: In 1952 in Galt, Ontario, a nine-year old boy was the victim of a weird accident: He was run over by a truck in the town's Christmas parade that year, almost killing him. His father was self employed and had no health insurance of any kind. The Galt/Preston Rotary Club stepped in to help with hospital bills that stretched over more than a year of hospital stays and surgeries. Without that help the family would have been destitute, but with the Rotary's help that boy was able to recover and become a fervent reader and student. It enabled him to get a college education and go on to a satisfying career as a computer scientist. In this talk, Dr. Mitchell will talk about what the Rotary Club has meant to him and his family and the impact he has been able to have in the world as a result of the Club's help and encouragement.