Adam Dunkels (born 1978) is a Swedish

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...

computer programmer A computer programmer, sometimes referred to as a software developer, a software engineer, a programmer or a coder, is a person who creates computer programs — often for larger computer software. A programmer is someone who writes/creates ...

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

, and founder of Thingsquare, an

Internet of things The Internet of things (IoT) describes physical objects (or groups of such objects) with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other comm ...

(IoT) product development business. His father was professor of

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

Andrejs Dunkels. His mother was professor Kerstin Vännman. His work is mainly focused on

computer network A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections are ...

ing technology and distributed communication for small

embedded system An embedded system is a computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is ''embedded'' as ...

s and devices and

wireless sensor network Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) refer to networks of spatially dispersed and dedicated sensors that monitor and record the physical conditions of the environment and forward the collected data to a central location. WSNs can measure environmental c ...

s on the Internet. He attended the

Swedish Institute of Computer Science RISE SICS (previously Swedish Institute of Computer Science) is a leading research institute for applied information and communication technology in Sweden, founded in 1985. It explores the digitalization of products, services and businesses. In ...

where he earned

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

(B.S.),

Master of Science A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

(M.S.) in 2001, and a

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common Academic degree, degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields ...

(Ph.D.) in 2007. Dunkels is best known to the embedded community as the author of the uIP (micro-IP) and

lwIP lwIP (lightweight IP) is a widely used open-source TCP/IP stack designed for embedded systems. lwIP was originally developed by Adam Dunkels at the Swedish Institute of Computer Science and is now developed and maintained by a worldwide networ ...

TCP/IP

Internet protocol suite The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...

(stacks). He invented

protothread A protothread is a low-overhead mechanism for concurrent programming. Protothreads function as Call stack, stackless, lightweight Thread (computer science), threads, or coroutines, providing a blocking context cheaply using minimal memory per proto ...

s and the

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

Contiki Contiki is an operating system for networked, memory-constrained systems with a focus on low-power wireless Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Extant uses for Contiki include systems for street lighting, sound monitoring for smart cities, radia ...

. The ''MIT Technology Review'' placed him on the

TR35 The Innovators Under 35 is a peer-reviewed annual award and listicle published by ''MIT Technology Review'' magazine, naming the world's top 35 innovators under the age of 35. at ''Technology Review'' with lists of winners at technologyreview.com ...

list of world's top 35 innovators under 35, in 2009. His book ''Interconnecting Smart Objects with IP: the Next Internet'', co-authored with Jean-Philippe Vasseur, and with a foreword by

Vint Cerf Vinton Gray Cerf (; born June 23, 1943) is an American Internet pioneer and is recognized as one of " the fathers of the Internet", sharing this title with TCP/IP co-developer Bob Kahn. He has received honorary degrees and awards that include t ...

, was published in 2010. He is a founder of the Internet Protocol for Smart Objects Alliance (

IPSO Alliance The Internet Protocol for Smart Objects (IPSO) Alliance was an international technical standards organization promoting the Internet Protocol (IP) for what it calls "smart object" communications. The IPSO Alliance was a non-profit organization fou ...

), which promotes IP networking for smart objects such as embedded systems and wireless sensors, and author of the alliance's white paper. Dunkels received the 2008

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional member ...

(ACM) SIGOPS EuroSys Roger Needham PhD award for his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

thesis "Programming Memory-Constrained Networked Embedded Systems". He has won an ERCIM Cor Baayen award.

Networked embedded software

Many of Dunkels's small implementations are used in commercial products from companies, including

Asea Brown Boveri ABB Ltd. is a Swedish-Swiss multinational corporation headquartered in Zürich, Switzerland. The company was formed in 1988 when Sweden's Allmänna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget (ASEA) and Switzerland's Brown, Boveri & Cie merged to create ...

(ABB),

Altera Altera Corporation was a manufacturer of programmable logic devices (PLDs) headquartered in San Jose, California. It was founded in 1983 and acquired by Intel in 2015. The main product lines from Altera were the flagship Stratix series, mid-rang ...

, BMW,

Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develo ...

Ericsson (lit. "Telephone Stock Company of LM Ericsson"), commonly known as Ericsson, is a Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company headquartered in Stockholm. The company sells infrastructure, software, and services in informat ...

, GE,

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...

(HP), Volvo Technology, and

Xilinx Xilinx, Inc. ( ) was an American technology and semiconductor company that primarily supplied programmable logic devices. The company was known for inventing the first commercially viable field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and creating the fi ...

. They include: *

Protothreads A protothread is a low-overhead mechanism for concurrent programming. Protothreads function as stackless, lightweight threads, or coroutines, providing a blocking context cheaply using minimal memory per protothread (on the order of single bytes) ...

* uIP (micro-IP) *

(lightweight IP) * uVNC * Miniweb * phpstack * μBASIC

References

External links

*
Xerox honors Swedish inventor of minimalistic operating system with maximal field of applicationSlashdot: Adam Dunkels on Embedded Sensor NetworksThe uIP TCP/IP stackDr Dobb's Journal: Inside the uIP Stack
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dunkels, Adam Luleå University of Technology alumni Living people 1978 births Swedish computer scientists Technology company founders Swedish company founders People from Luleå