Nicholas Negroponte

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Nicholas Negroponte

Nicholas Negroponte (* 1943 in New York City ) is an American computer scientist and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is co-founder of the MIT Media Lab and the figurehead of the non-profit initiative One Laptop per Child .

He is the younger brother of former US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte .

biography

Negroponte was born in New York's Upper East Side as the son of the Greek shipowner Dimitri John Negroponte and his wife Catherine Coumantaros .

He studied at MIT, where he specialized in computer-aided design after graduating . In 1966 he became a faculty member at MIT. He then held the MIT professorship for several years at Yale University , the University of Michigan and the University of California, Berkeley .

In 1968 he co-founded the MIT Architecture Machine Group, a think tank that brought forth innovative ideas and new approaches to the interface problem in the context of human-computer interaction .

In 1985, Negroponte finally founded the MIT Media Lab .

Known for his innovative approaches, Negroponte worked, among other things, as a director at Motorola , was a partner in a venture capital company in the field of digital technologies for information and entertainment. He provided the funding for more than 40 start-up companies. His best-known funding is that of Wired Magazine.

A fruitful collaboration developed from this risk financing. From 1993 to 1998 he wrote a monthly column in Wired, in which he repeatedly contributed his credo “move bits, not atoms!” .

Nicholas Negroponte later combined 18 of these columns into one book. He published it in 1995 under the name Being Digital (in German Total Digital ). This book became a bestseller shortly after its publication. In it he carefully examines the recent history of information technology and gives a forecast that has since been made correctly that the interactive world, the world of entertainment and the world of information will ultimately merge. The book Being Digital has been translated into more than 40 languages and was thus a world success.

On October 23, 1998, the Swatch Internet Time , which Negroponte developed, was launched.

In 2000, Negroponte was appointed honorary professor at the UdK Berlin as part of the 01 Award from the Berlin University of the Arts . The jury's decision was unanimous. In the reason for his honor it was stated that he is the most important personality in the field of new media and that he has made and still makes an outstanding contribution to the cultural development of our media society. Professor Lothar Romain, President of the UdK Berlin and chairman of the jury, praised Negroponte as a “scientist, author, thought leader, professor and visionary of our society, who with a high degree of social responsibility and competence never lost sight of the ambivalence of global media developments . In all of his activities he acts as a catalyst, who enables creative processes with a special attitude and creative power. "

In recent years, Negroponte has received increased public attention through the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project . As chairman of this non-profit organization , together with other colleagues at MIT, he succeeded in developing a full-fledged laptop on a GNU / Linux basis for use in schools ( e-learning ). The project aims to counteract the development of the digital divide between industrialized and emerging countries and to make it easier for every child to connect to the digital age.

In January 2005, Nicholas Negroponte presented the Hundred Dollar Laptop Project (HDLP) to the public at the World Economic Forum in Davos . On November 16, 2005, Negroponte and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan presented the first copies of the 100-dollar laptop at the World Summit on the Information Society . The originally announced price of 100 US dollars has not yet been achieved. At the start of high-volume production, it is $ 188.

Since 2006 Nicholas Negroponte has devoted himself increasingly to the continuation of the $ 100 laptop project. He describes it as one of the most important projects of the digital age.

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Web links

Wikiquote: Nicholas Negroponte  - Quotes
personal data
SURNAME Negroponte, Nicholas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American computer scientist
DATE OF BIRTH 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City , USA