Michael J Hawley

Michael Hawley, a computer programmer, professor, musician, speechwriter and impresario who helped lay the intellectual groundwork for what is now called the Internet of Things, died on Wednesday at his home in Cambridge, Mass. He was 58. The cause was colon cancer, said his father, George Hawley. Mr. Hawley began his career as a video game programmer at Lucasfilm, the company created by the “Star Wars” director George Lucas. He spent his last 15 years curating the Entertainment Gathering, or EG, a conference dedicated to new ideas. In between, he worked at NeXT, the influential computer company founded by Steve Jobs after he left Apple in the mid-1980s, and spent nine years as a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab, Mr. Hawley lived with both Mr. Jobs and the artificial intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky, published the world’s largest book, won first prize in an international competition of amateur pianists, played alongside the cellist Yo-Yo Ma at the wedding of the celebrity scientist Bill Nye, joined one of the first scientific expeditions to Mount Everest, and wrote commencement speeches for both Mr. Jobs and the Google co-founder Larry Page. Dr. Hawley is the former Director of Special Projects at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a position he held from 2001 until August 2006. Prior to assuming these duties, Dr. Hawley served as the Alex W. Dreyfoos Assistant Professor of Media Technology at the MIT Media Lab. From 1986 to 1995, he held a number of positions at MIT, including Assistant Professor, Media Laboratory; Assistant Professor, EECS; and Research Assistant, Media Laboratory. Dr. Hawley is the founder of Friendly Planet, a non-profit organization working to provide better educational opportunities for children in developing regions of the world. He is also a co-founder of Things That Think, a ground-breaking research program that examines the way digital media infuses itself into everyday objects. Dr. Hawley graduated from Yale University with a BS degree in Computer Science and Music and holds a Ph.D. degree from MIT. Mr. Hawley and his wife, Nina You, were married at Kyichu Lhakhang, a seventh-century Bhutanese temple, and lived in a 193-year-old church in East Cambridge, where he kept three pianos, including a Steinway. She and his father survive him, as do a son, Tycho; a daughter, Choki Lhamo; and two brothers, Stephen and Patrick.