Michael Abràmoff

was born in the year Kennedy was shot, 1963. His first memories date back to when he was two and a half years old and his parents took him on a sailing trip. It was sunny and wet.

Mike and his "total destroyer" at 3 years old, built from Lego. It was a very successful design and was used for years to pulverize the constructions his little brother Patrick built.

When he wasn't at school and wasn't able to get away to construct with Lego, he played tennis. He was very fanatical and cried when he lost. This is him at 10 years old (on the right, next to the umpire two years his senior), after winning the local championship and thus not crying:




When he was 15 years old he read and reread Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. He drew an enormous map of 1 x 1.5 meters of Middle Earth, and even used Tolkien's Elvish script. It really is a fine book for children, though when he tried to reread it a few years ago he couldn't get past the first few pages of pseudo-Keltic new-age Kitsch.

And here he is defending a paper at the second European Neural Network Conference, Helsinki, 1991. Of course here Michael is a serious young man. The man in front was attacking his model. The man may have been right, but he didnt cry.