Nicholas Negroponte Chairman, MIT Media Laboratory Jerome B. Wiesner Professor of Media Technology Nicholas Negroponte is co-founder and chairman of the Media Lab. A graduate of MIT, Negroponte was a pioneer in the field of computer- aided design. In 1968 he founded MIT's pioneering Architecture Machine Group, a combination lab and think tank responsible for many radically new approaches to the human-computer interface. Out of this experience came over 200 published articles and three influential texts. He is also author of the 1995 bestseller, Being Digital, which has been translated into more than 40 languages. A member of the MIT faculty since 1966, Negroponte also has been a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; the University of California, Berkeley; and Yale University; and he travels extensively throughout the world as a lecturer. Negroponte is actively involved in the Media Lab Europe, and serves as the chairman of its board of directors. In the private sector, Negroponte serves on the board of directors for Motorola, Inc., and as special general partner in a venture capital firm specializing in technologies for information and entertainment. He has also provided start-up funds for more than 20 companies, including WiReD magazine and several ventures in China. Back to the Full Schedule.