No. 6 Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman, One Laptop Per Child project
Last year's position: Not placed
Why? Building a $100 laptop
Nicholas Negroponte heads up the influential MIT Media Labs but that's not the reason he makes the top 50. Negroponte has been picked for his sideline, the One Laptop Per Child (aka $100 laptop) project.
Negroponte's baby aims to get one low-spec, open source, mesh-network-using laptop into the hands of schoolchildren in developing countries.
Love it or loathe it, the project is causing some big waves in the IT industry - trumpeting affordable computing, potentially spreading open source into markets Microsoft would love to dominate and posing questions regarding just how important tech is in education.
While the $100 laptop is not yet in production, it's already forcing down computer hardware prices, the Agenda Setters panel believes.
One panellist summed it up: "Whether or not Nicholas succeeds or fails, he's having a dramatic effect on the industry by sheer presence."
Take a walk down memory lane - and find out who made the Agenda Setters poll over the years:
"Ray Ozzie is a radical change force for Microsoft. He is moving them in a very different direction."
--Richard Sykes, Agenda Setters panellist
"My observation is that [kids today] are far more networked and open than any other generation we have ever seen."
--Peter Cochrane, Agenda Setters panellist
The world's most powerful women Forbes.com
Smart 50 - Asia's best users of IT ZDNet Asia
Chron 500 - The San Francisco Bay Area's top public companies San Francisco Chronicle
The 50 people who matter now Business 2.0
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