BREAKING NEWS: MIT Media Lab's John Maeda to become RISD's new president

Posted on December 21st, 2007
By Jack Templin

In Rhode Island's info-tech & digital media (ITDM) community 2007 is going out with a bang - this morning RISD announced that John Maeda will become the school's 16th president. Simply put, Maeda is a giant at the intersection of design and technology.

In 2008, we'll be following this news and the implications for the state's ITDM sector closely. In the meantime, feast on these links:

RISD Press Release (includes a video the TEDBlog calls "supercool" by Providence-based Machine Hero)
Video of Maeda's Sept. talk at the TED Conference
Maeda's blog: Simplicity
MIT Media Lab profile on Maeda
Wikipedia article on Maeda

Happy Holidays, All! We just received a fantastic present.

Update: The PBN has just published an interview with Maeda.

4 comments

Comments

bjepson

Submitted on December 21st, 2007 - 7:32pm link

This is great news. I poked around that Wikipedia article and noticed he wrote a book on DBN, the precursor to Processing, which gave rise to Arduino. According to this page, DBN is the result of Maeda's efforts, so I have him to thank (indirectly) for Arduino. Cool!!!

owen

Submitted on January 2nd, 2008 - 10:34am link

The intersection of the cultures of the MIT Media Lab and RISD has the potential to create an amazing new culture. John may very well be the only individual capable of taking the substantial traditional base of RISD and injecting the futuristic gusto of the Media Lab. I'm thrilled, and see this as very exciting news for RISD and for Providence.

JudyHe

Submitted on January 9th, 2008 - 11:46pm link

AIGA just posted an interview with Maeda (http://rinexus.com/news/2054/o...) mentioning a "hidden online community that has launched at RISD concurrent with my announcement, called 'One RISD.'"

Apparently it's at one.risd.edu but requires RISD login. An alum posted an open letter to Maeda on RISD's Daily Jolt forums about wanting to join the convo but not being able to. And then Maeda answered him! http://risd.dailyjolt.com/foru...

Though often Jolt threads end up degenerating into name calling, they're also pretty notorious for uncensored opinions so it's interesting to see Maeda tapping into that audience. It's actually really exciting to read through those threads -- he seems to have so much energy and tech-savvy -- what a great catch for RISD!

peyush

Submitted on July 22nd, 2008 - 7:59am link

This site is very informative.This will be a happy declaration for everyone.The joining of the MIT Media Lab and RISD has the ability to create an amazing new culture.

===============================================

PEYUSH

http://www.addictionrecovery.n...