Three years later, while a student at MIT, Kurzweil started and sold his first company, Select Computer Systems, which was the first computer-based system that matched high school students and colleges. The Kurzweil Music System was the first electronic music synthesizer to reproduce realistically the complex sound of any musical instrument and revolutionized the music industry. For Lifetime Achievement winner, Raymond Damadian, it was the death of his grandmother from cancer that inspired him to go on and create the Magnetic Resonance Scanning Machine in 1971. Six years later, his MRI technology successfully completed the first scan of the human body. Since then, the system has enabled doctors to save the lives of millions of people through early detection of cancer and other illnesses.
Innovation is the thrill of discovery.
According to Kurzweil, the 21st century will outstrip any that has come before in terms of innovation and technological advances. Most people have a linear view of the future, but I think we'll see more than a hundred years of progress in the 21st century. Kurzweil went on to say that at the turn of the next century, those who ushered in the year 2000, may not recognize the world they live in. It will be a very interesting century and a very revolutionary one. It is going to be very different by the end.