Jack Kilby

Hello, I'm Jack Kilby. When I was a little boy, I was very curious. I loved to take things apart to see how they worked inside. My favorite things to explore were radios. My dad worked with electricity, and I thought that was super neat. Seeing how things were powered made me want to build things, too.

When I grew up, I became an engineer. An engineer is a person who solves problems. The problem I saw was that electronic parts were very big and clunky. It made things like computers take up a whole room. In the year 1958, I had a tiny, big idea. I thought, what if all the parts could be put on one tiny little piece? I called my invention an integrated circuit. It was so small, it could fit right on your fingertip.

My tiny chip helped change the world. Because it was so small, it could fit inside all sorts of new things. My invention helped make amazing machines like pocket calculators that you could hold in your hand. It also helped make computers smaller and smaller. It even helped make toys that beep and light up. My little invention helped make big things possible.

I lived to be 81 years old, and I spent my life thinking of new ideas. People remember my invention because that tiny chip is inside almost all the electronic gadgets we use. It is in the things we use to learn, play, and talk to each other every single day. My little chip made a big difference.