Different pictures of John Henry Thompson throughout his adult life
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John Henry ThompsonEarly Life Born in the year 1959 to parents Mabel Thompson and Walter Thompson, he spent the early part of his youth living in Jamaica with his Aunt and her children. Around the age of 5 years he was re-joined with his parents in Essex, England and then at the age of 12 he and his entire family moved to Brooklyn, New York City. He then attended the Bronx High School of Science in New York where he received his secondary education and graduated with honours in 1977 and was also a recipient of the New York State regents Scholarship. John went on to study computer languages (mainly LISP and interpretive languages) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) but he had a passion for art as well and as such was doing a minor in visual arts and design. He had such an interest in the arts that he had paused his MIT programme after just two years where he then enrolled himself at The Art Students League of New York where he then studied both drawing and painting. He was ambitious about both art and technology that his desire was to put them together and on his return to MIT he refocused on integrating these two. On completion of both programmes he left school with a Bachelor of science in computer science and engineering with a minor in visual arts and design. |
His time at Macromedia His goal was to absorb as much knowledge as he could as to invent his very own computer language. Having had an early interest in both the arts and technology, this lead him to a company called macromedia where he got a job. From the year 1987, while at this company there had been quite a number of software products that he had developed. They include The VideoWorks Accelerator, VideoWorks 2, Macromedia Director amongst other products and he also . While here, he held the position of Chief Scientists (this is the highest engineering position at Macromedia) until he left the company in 2001. He was able to achieve his goal as he had also invented the Macromedia Director Lingo Scripting language. Content that is created in Macromedia Director is delivered to the Internet as Shockwave movies.
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What does he do now? (After leaving Macromedia) In the years to come following his departure from Macromedia John Henry Thompson came to Jamaica to host mobile apps development workshops under the Digital Jam 2.0 Project. He also devotes his time to writing iPhone apps for EP Visual Design and also practicing yoga such as the Ashtanga Primary Series. In an interview with the Jamaican Observer he was asked "What next for you in your career?" He replied by telling them that he would like to make it easy for persons to use a computer as an expressive instrument and he also stated that he is always excited about the possibilities that technology has and in whatever way possible for him to contribute to the industry he will.
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His awards
He was awarded (along with Peter William Meyers) Patent 8,700,804 for Methods and apparatus for managing mobile content in the year 2014 and he was also awarded by the Institute of Jamaica his Musgrave Award for his outstanding merit in the field of science in the year 2013.
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Earl Banton