Genrikh Saulovich Altshuller (Russian: Ге́нрих Сау́лович Альтшу́ллер, pronounced [ˈɡʲɛnrʲɪx sɐˈuləvʲɪtɕ əlʲtʂulʲɪr]; 15 October 1926 – 24 September 1998) was a Soviet engineer, inventor, and writer.

[3] A full-fledged TRIZ movement developed among Soviet engineers and other technically inclined people by the 1970s, and Altshuller played the role of its intellectual leader.

[citation needed] In 1971 he founded the Azerbaijan Public Institute of Inventive Creativity, a school which was "a blend of bohemian improvisation and gearhead thinking".

[3] For a long time he published articles on TRIZ, with examples and exercises, in the Soviet popular science magazine Izobretatel i Ratsionalizator (Inventor and Innovator).

Following his release from prison camp in the 1950s, he earned a living as a science fiction writer, under the pseudonym Genrikh Altov (Генрих Альтов), often in collaboration with his wife, Valentina Zhuravleva, whom he married in 1957.