NW: How did your Nerd Life evolve?

RK: By the age of five I was convinced I would be a scientist/inventor. I always knew what I was going to be. I got involved in projects [that] grabbed my imagination and that usually winded up being a lot more complicated than originally anticipated. At the age of seven or eight, I built a puppet theater that had mechanical systems that changed the scenery. I got involved with computers at about the age of twelve. I built some computer like devices with electrical parts I would buy down on Canal Street in New York. You could buy these telephone relays that were primary electrical devices I could use to implement logical circuits.

The Lemelson-MIT prize, presented to Ray Kurzweil in Washington, D.C., recognizes his 35-year track record inventing technologies in areas as diverse as pattern recognition, artificial intelligence and speech reading.