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Nicholas Negroponte (born 1943 ) is a Greek-American Computer Scientist best known as founder and ex-director of Massachusetts Institute Of Technology 's Media Lab . In large part due to his technological vision, he has been very successful in administration of the Media Lab. Born the son of a Greek ship owner on New York City 's Upper East Side , Nicholas Negroponte attended Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, Connecticut. He then studied at MIT, where as a graduate student he specialized in the field of Computer-aided Design . He earned a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Architecture from MIT in 1966. He joined the faculty of MIT in 1966 . For several years thereafter he divided his teaching time between MIT and visiting professorships at Yale , Michigan , and the University Of California, Berkeley . In 1968 he founded MIT's Architecture Machine Group, a combination lab and think tank which studied new approaches to the Human-computer Interface . In 1985 , Negroponte piloted MIT's Media Lab into existence. It developed into the pre-eminent computer science laboratory for new media and a high-tech playground for investigating the human-computer interface. In 1992 , he became involved in the creation of '' Wired Magazine '' as a minority investor. From 1993 to 1998 , he contributed a monthly column to the magazine in which he reiterated a basic theme, his credo "Move bits, not atoms." Negroponte expanded many of the ideas he wrote about in his ''Wired'' columns into a bestselling book '' Being Digital '' ( 1995 ), which made famous his forecasts on how the interactive world, the entertainment world, and the information world would eventually merge. ''Being Digital'' was a bestseller and was translated into some twenty languages. However, critics faulted his Techno-utopian ideas for failing to consider the historical, political, and cultural realities with which new technologies should be viewed. In the years following the Dot-com Bust , the book was quickly outdated. ]] In November 2005, at the World Summit On The Information Society held in Tunis , Negroponte unveiled a $100 Laptop computer designed for students in the developing world. The project is part of a broader program by One Laptop Per Child , a non-profit started by Negroponte and other Media Lab faculty, to extend Internet access in developing countries. Negroponte sits on several boards including Motorola and Ambient Devices . He has invested in over 30 startup companies over the last 30 years, including Zagats , Wired , Ambient Devices , and Skype . Negroponte has left the MIT Media Lab in February 2006 to devote his time to the One Laptop Per Child project. His follower as director is the entrepreneur Frank Moss . He is the brother of United States Director Of National Intelligence , John Negroponte . REFERENCES
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