Chairman and Founder, One Laptop Per Child
Award for Public Service

 

Leveraging his commitment to international outreach as well as the vital impact modern technology can have on third-world communities, Prof. Negroponte is the Founder and Chairman of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC). Each year, the organization provides low-cost, low-power, and highly efficient laptops to disenfranchised children across the globe. Since its inception, more than two million children have received laptops connecting them with people, ideas, and information, from around the world. Giving today’s impoverished youth access to new communication tools affords them a much-needed segue into the vast world of information, providing them with the resources for a more promising future.

 

A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and devout academic, Prof. Negroponte joined the University’s faculty and has become one of its most visionary leaders. He has been instrumental in the creation and directing of the MIT Media Laboratory—a research center focused exclusively on study and experimentation with future forms of human communication, and which includes several programs specific to technology and education in underdeveloped nations. He authored the 1995 best seller, Being Digital, which has been translated into over forty languages, and co-founded Wired magazine.

 

Praised internationally for his work as both an academic and as a humanitarian, Professor Negroponte has led a distinguished career promoting the concept of human development through technology. Among his many accomplishments, he also founded the Architecture Machine Group, which is responsible for innovative approaches to the human-computer interface. He later served as the Founding Chairman of the International Federation of Information Processing Societies’ Computers in Everyday Life Program, as well as the first Executive Director of the French Government’s World Center for Personal Computation and Human Development.

 

Professor Negroponte has created a legacy of positive change, empowering generations to come with the tools for educational and societal advancement. He is changing the world one computer, one child, and one future at a time.