Randolph Frederick "Randy" Pausch was an American professor at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who rose to fame following his lecture titled ‘The Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams’ shortly after he was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. An academician who specialized in the fields of computer science, human–computer interaction, and design, he was also a very prominent researcher who had worked on various projects with Adobe, Google, EA, and Walt Disney. Over the course of his career, he had co-founded CMU's Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) in collaboration with his colleague Don Marinelli. His career was in full-swing when in September 2006 he started suffering from severe health problems. Diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at the age of 46, Randy Pausch found himself re-evaluating his life and career. Having achieved several of his childhood dreams, he decided to share all his knowledge and experiences on living a happy and productive life with his students before it was too late. Thus on September 18, 2007, Pausch delivered ‘The Last Lecture’ which was recorded and shared widely on social media, making the hitherto unknown professor a celebrity of sorts. The popularity of his lecture also led him to author a book of the same name which went on to become a best-seller.