Nicholas Negroponte facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Nicholas Negroponte
|
|
|---|---|
|
|
| Born | December 1, 1943 |
| Occupation | Academic and computer scientist |
| Children | Dimitri Negroponte |
Nicholas Negroponte (born December 1, 1943) is a Greek American architect and computer scientist. He is well-known for founding the MIT Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He also started the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project. This project aimed to provide low-cost laptops to children in developing countries. Negroponte is the author of the 1995 book Being Digital, which was translated into over forty languages.
Contents
Early life and education
Nicholas Negroponte was born in New York City on December 1, 1943. He grew up in the Upper East Side neighborhood. His father, Dimitrios Negropontis, was a Greek shipping business owner. Nicholas has three brothers. His older brother, John Negroponte, used to be the United States Deputy Secretary of State. His brother Michel Negroponte is a filmmaker who has won awards. His brother George Negroponte is an artist.
Nicholas went to several schools, including Buckley School (New York City) and Fay School. He also studied in Switzerland at Institut Le Rosey. He graduated from Choate Rosemary Hall in 1961. After that, he went to MIT. There, he studied architecture and focused on how computers could help with design. He earned his master's degree in architecture from MIT in 1966. Even though he had a great academic career, Negroponte has shared that he has dyslexia, which made reading difficult for him.
Career highlights
Working at MIT
Negroponte joined the faculty at MIT in 1966. For several years, he also taught as a visiting professor at other universities. These included Yale, Michigan, and the University of California, Berkeley. In 1966, he also worked with IBM. This role helped him find ways to use computers to assist architects and designers.
In 1967, Negroponte started MIT's Architecture Machine Group. This group was a lab and a think tank. They explored new ways for humans and computers to work together. The group mainly looked at how computers could be used in architecture. Negroponte believed that computers could do more than just make design faster. He wanted to explore how machines could truly collaborate with humans in architectural design. The group received funding from DARPA and the The Pentagon. They researched early ideas in human-computer interaction and virtual reality. Their research was shared in two books: The Architecture Machine (1973) and Soft Architecture Machines (1976).
In 1985, Negroponte co-founded the MIT Media Lab with Jerome B. Wiesner. As the director, he helped the lab become a leading place for new media research. It became a hub for exploring how people interact with technology. Negroponte also supported the idea of intelligent agents. These are like smart computer programs. He also talked about personalized electronic newspapers, which he called the "Daily Me".
Working with Wired magazine
In 1992, Negroponte was the first person to invest in Wired Magazine. From 1993 to 1998, he wrote a monthly column for the magazine. In his columns, he often repeated a simple idea: "Move bits, not atoms." This meant that digital information (bits) would become more important than physical things (atoms).
Negroponte expanded on his ideas from Wired in his bestselling book Being Digital (1995). This book became famous for predicting how the internet, entertainment, and information would all come together. Being Digital was a huge success and was translated into about forty languages. Negroponte was very optimistic about digital technology. He believed that computers would make life better for everyone. He also predicted that wired technologies, like telephones, would become wireless. And wireless technologies, like televisions, would become wired. This idea is known as the Negroponte switch.
Later career and projects
In 2000, Negroponte stepped down as director of the Media Lab. However, he remained the lab's chairman. In 2006, he stepped down as chairman to focus more on his work with One Laptop Per Child (OLPC). He still holds a professor position at MIT.
In November 2005, Negroponte introduced the idea of a $100 laptop computer. This laptop, called The Children's Machine, was designed for students in developing countries. The price later increased to about US$180. This project is part of a bigger effort by One Laptop Per Child. This is a nonprofit organization that Negroponte and other MIT Media Lab faculty started. Their goal is to help more people in developing countries get access to the internet.
Negroponte is also an active angel investor. This means he invests his own money in new startup companies. Over the last 30 years, he has invested in more than 30 companies. These include Zagats, Wired, Ambient Devices, and Skype. He has also served on the boards of several companies, like Motorola. In 2007, he was appointed to a special committee. This committee's job was to make sure the Wall Street Journal and other publications kept their journalistic independence.
Nicholas Negroponte has influenced many modern-day futurists. These are people who study and predict future trends.
See also
In Spanish: Nicholas Negroponte para niños
