Kenneth Harry Olsen was an American engineer who co-founded Digital Equipment Corporation in 1957 with colleague Harlan Anderson and his brother Stan Olsen
Kenneth Harry Olsen was born in Connecticut . His father’s parents came from Norway and his mother’s parents from Sweden. Olsen began his career working summers in a machine shop. Fixing radios in his basement gave him the reputation of a neighbourhood inventor.

After serving in the United States Navy between 1944 and 1946, Olsen attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned both a BS (1950) and an MS (1952) degree in Electrical engineering. He had been working at MIT Lincoln Laboratory on 36 bit computer TX-2 project. In 1957, Olsen and an MIT colleague, Harlan Anderson, decided to start their own firm. Olsen was known throughout his career for his management style and his fostering of engineering innovation. Olsen’s valuing of innovation and technical excellence spawned and popularized techniques such as engineering matrix management, that are broadly employed today throughout many industries. Olsen valued humility, he drove an economy car and kept a simple office in an old mill building. He also was an accomplished pilot and flew his own plane. In 1986, Fortune Magazine named Olsen “America’s most successful entrepreneur”, and the same year he received the IEEE Engineering Leadership Recognition Award