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Paul Allen is in town today to announce and celebrate the opening of the Startup Gallery at a series of events and a gala dinner at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History. The Startup Gallery is Allen's gift back to the community that was the birthplace of his wildest entrepreneurial dreams.

Allen was one of the co-founders of Microsoft here in Albuquerque in 1975, along with his erstwhile and slightly richer high school buddy, Bill Gates. Allen was 22 and Gates 19 at the time. They already had visions of their second startup when they pulled up stakes in Boston to venture west.

The truly dynamic duo were drawn here by the world's first personal computer, the MITS Altair, invented in Albuquerque by an Air Force electrical engineering researcher cum medical doctor, Ed Roberts. The Altair was featured on the cover of the January 1975 Popular Electronics magazine and shortly after reading the article Allen was on a plane to Albuquerque for his fateful discussions with Roberts.

For the trivia buff, Traf-O-Data was Allen's and Gates' first startup company in their native Seattle. Traf-O-Data did valuable work for the Washington state highway department tabulating data collected from those rubber hoses you occasionally see stretched across the road. And, of course, Micro-Soft went on to become the global giant Microsoft.

The Startup Gallery celebrates Albuquerque's instrumental role in the invention, entrepreneurship and history of the personal computer. The gallery seeks to inspire other wunderkinds among our youth to cultivate and pursue their ambitions and dreams.

Think about it. The world's first PC was invented in New Mexico, and the world's largest software company was started in New Mexico.

"In launching this gallery, we have several goals," Allen announced at the gallery kick-off back in October 2004. "First, Bill Gates and I would like to give back to the Albuquerque community where we spent our early years starting Microsoft. Next, I really hope this new exhibit will give visitors a chance to explore the role that personal computer technology has had in their lives and how anyone with curiosity, passion and drive can realize their dreams like we did.

"I was always thinking about the future when I was young - that time in your life when you think anything is possible. I'm sure today's young and spirited entrepreneurs will find many new opportunities in personal computers and on the Internet."

Allen's other impacts on New Mexico should not be overlooked. Vern Raburn, employee No. 18 at Microsoft, went on to head Allen's primary venture company, Vulcan Ventures, before starting Eclipse Aviation in Albuquerque. Eclipse is poised for take-off into the New Mexico skies with more than 2,300 orders for its six-seat business jet, revolutionizing aviation (and New Mexico's economy) much as Microsoft helped revolutionize personal computing.

Allen also acquired the blissful retreat, formerly known as Sol y Sombra, that was Georgia O'Keeffe's final estate in Santa Fe. He knows the New Mexico soul.

The truth about Allen and Gates is that from the start of their friendship at Lakeside School in Seattle, they were pursuing their computer destiny. They maximized the opportunities that they created for themselves - from the computer equipment at their schools, to writing the BASIC operating system for the Altair, to the fortuitous acquisition and development of MS-DOS, to their Windows environment and beyond.

A few more tidbits for the trivia buff. The Altair was named after a star system on Star Trek. More than 60,000 of them were sold during the 1970s. Arguably, the power of the Altair inspired the Steves - Jobs and Wozniak - and many others, making computing and all its powers ubiquitous. One of the original Altairs is enshrined in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.

Opportunists show up at the right time, but visionaries create the opportunities to begin with. Allen and Gates were visionaries, inspired by their curiosities. They rode the waves of technology change and along their way they changed the world.