Nicholas Negroponte - Agenda Setters 2009

Name: Nicholas Negroponte

Title: Founder of One Laptop Per Child

Position: 18    Last year: Not ranked

Why? Kick-starting the netbook trend

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• Matt Mullenweg
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• John Chambers

Nicholas Negroponte, the man behind the XO - the device formerly known as the $100 laptop - makes his third appearance on the Agenda Setters list.

While his own agenda of bringing better education to the developing world through a mini laptop may have been overtaken by Silicon Valley's big names, Negroponte still remains the man that kick-started the trend.

Negroponte's laptop earns him his place on this year's Agenda Setter's list not only for his practical approach for getting millions of children onto the internet and for helping to inspire the netbook trend that hardware makers have embraced wholeheartedly, but for his adaptability and the expectation of what more he will contribute to the tech world.

He is currently on leave from MIT, where he was co-founder and director of the MIT Media Laboratory, and the Jerome B Wiesner Professor of Media Technology. He also serves on the board of directors for Motorola and as general partner in a venture capital firm specialising in digital technologies for information and entertainment. He has also provided start-up funds for more than 40 companies.

With a pedigree like that, the panellists are expecting more from Negroponte in the coming years. As one pondered: "What will he do next?"