Cyberspace is a concept describing a widespread interconnected digital technology. "The expression dates back from the first decade of the diffusion of the internet. It refers to the online world as a world 'apart', as distinct from everyday reality. In cyberspace people can hide behind fake identities, as in the famous The New Yorker cartoon." The term entered popular culture from science fiction and the arts but is now used by technology strategists, security professionals, government, military and industry leaders and entrepreneurs to describe the domain of the global technology environment, commonly defined as standing for the global network of interdependent information technology infrastructures, telecommunications networks and computer processing systems. Others consider cyberspace to be just a national environment in which communication over computer networks occurs. The word became popular in the 1990s when the use of the Internet, networking, and digital communication were all growing dramatically; the term cyberspace was able to represent the many new ideas and phenomena that were emerging.
Ubiquitous computing is a concept in software engineering, hardware engineering and computer science where computing is made to appear anytime and everywhere. In contrast to desktop computing, ubiquitous computing can occur using any device, in any location, and in any format. A user interacts with the computer, which can exist in many different forms, including laptop computers, tablets, smart phones and terminals in everyday objects such as a refrigerator or a pair of glasses. The underlying technologies to support ubiquitous computing include Internet, advanced middleware, operating system, mobile code, sensors, microprocessors, new I/O and user interfaces, computer networks, mobile protocols, location and positioning, and new materials.
Nicholas Negroponte is a Greek American architect. He is the founder and chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, and also founded the One Laptop per Child Association (OLPC). Negroponte is the author of the 1995 bestseller Being Digital translated into more than forty languages.
Technological convergence, also known as digital convergence, is the tendency for technologies that were originally unrelated to become more closely integrated and even unified as they develop and advance. For example, watches, telephones, television, computers, and social media platforms began as separate and mostly unrelated technologies, but have converged in many ways into interrelated parts of a telecommunication and media industry, sharing common elements of digital electronics and software.
Network society is the expression coined in 1991 related to the social, political, economic and cultural changes caused by the spread of networked, digital information and communications technologies. The intellectual origins of the idea can be traced back to the work of early social theorists such as Georg Simmel who analyzed the effect of modernization and industrial capitalism on complex patterns of affiliation, organization, production and experience.
The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fixed academic disciplines, but draws from technology, media, science, art, and design. As of 2014, Media Lab's research groups include neurobiology, biologically inspired fabrication, socially engaging robots, emotive computing, bionics, and hyperinstruments.
Joichi "Joi" Ito is a Japanese entrepreneur and venture capitalist. He is a former director of the MIT Media Lab, former professor of the practice of media arts and sciences at MIT, and a former visiting professor of practice at the Harvard Law School. Following the exposure of his personal and professional financial ties to sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein, Ito resigned from his roles at MIT, Harvard, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Knight Foundation, PureTech Health, and The New York Times Company on September 7, 2019.
Digitality is used to mean the condition of living in a digital culture, derived from Nicholas Negroponte's book Being Digital in analogy with modernity and post-modernity.
Social computing is an area of computer science that is concerned with the intersection of social behavior and computational systems. It is based on creating or recreating social conventions and social contexts through the use of software and technology. Thus, blogs, email, instant messaging, social network services, wikis, social bookmarking and other instances of what is often called social software illustrate ideas from social computing.
Social peer-to-peer processes are interactions with a peer-to-peer dynamic. These peers can be humans or computers. Peer-to-peer (P2P) is a term that originated from the popular concept of the P2P distributed computer application architecture which partitions tasks or workloads between peers. This application structure was popularized by file sharing systems like Napster, the first of its kind in the late 1990s.
Frank Moss is a researcher, technology and biotechnology entrepreneur, academician and author. Moss was the director of the MIT Media Lab from 2006 to 2011. He remains a professor of the practice and the principal investigator for the New Media Medicine research group, which he founded.
Alex Paul "Sandy" Pentland is an American computer scientist, the Toshiba Professor at MIT, and serial entrepreneur.
Digital India Corporation was founded as Media Lab Asia in 2001. It is a not-for-profit research entity founded as a result of cooperation between the MIT Media Lab and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology of the Government of India. Its objectives are to bring the benefits of information and communications technology to the people in Asia and around the world.
Al Gore is a former US Senator who served as the Vice President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. In the 1980s and 1990s, he promoted legislation that funded an expansion of the ARPANET, allowing greater public access, and helping to develop the Internet.
BT Research is the research arm of BT Group, formerly part of the British Post Office. The company was first established in 1921 as the Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill, London. In 1968 BT moved of its research to the new site at Martlesham Heath based on part of the old Royal Air Force Station at Martlesham Heath near Ipswich in the English county of Suffolk, which was later renamed Adastral Park.
Soumitra Dutta is a Professor of Management at the SC Johnson College of Business, Cornell University, NY and Chair of the Board of Directors of the Global Business School Network, Washington DC. Previously he served as the founding Dean of the SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell University from 1 April 2016 till 30 January 2018. From July 2012 until June 2016, he was the Anne and Elmer Lindseth Dean of the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management. Before his appointment to Cornell University, Dutta was the Roland Berger Chaired Professor of Business and Technology and Professor of Business and Technology at INSEAD. Since April 2018, he serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Global Business School Network, Washington DC. Previously he served as the Vice Chair and Chair for AACSB International, Tampa, Florida. He was also appointed in October 2018 as the Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on Innovation Ecosystems.
A living lab, or living laboratory, is a research concept, which may be defined as a user-centered, iterative, open-innovation ecosystem, often operating in a territorial context, integrating concurrent research and innovation processes within a public-private-people partnership.
Ramesh Srinivasan studies the relationship between technology, politics and society. Ramesh Srinivasan has been a faculty member at UCLA since 2005 in the Information Studies and Design Media Arts departments, as well as the founder of the UC-wide Digital Cultures Lab. He has traveled to 70 countries and worked in 30 studying the relationships between new technologies and political, economic, and social life. Srinivasan has published over 70 academic papers and received 3 peer-reviewed major grants from the National Science Foundation, along with many other prestigious awards and grants. He has worked with governments, businesses, activists, and civil society organizations to advise on technological futures. He also served as a national surrogate for Senator Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign and as an Innovation policy committee member for President Biden.
Ramesh Raskar is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology Associate Professor and head of the MIT Media Lab's Camera Culture research group. Previously he worked as a Senior Research Scientist at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL) during 2002 to 2008. He holds over ninety patents in computer vision, computational health, sensors and imaging. He received the $500K Lemelson–MIT Prize in 2016. The prize money will be used for launching REDX.io, a group platform for co-innovation in Artificial Intelligence. He is well known for inventing EyeNetra, EyeCatra and EyeSelfie, Femto-photography and his TED talk for cameras to see around corners.
John Henry Clippinger III is a researcher, entrepreneur, and activist around decentralized, autonomous, self-organizing systems with a focus on generative governance and finance for climate change and social equity.
