ZDNet UK reports that MIT Media Lab Asia was such an unmitigated disaster it made
Nicholas Negroponte, MIT Media Lab founder and lead wolf on OPLC, persona non grata within the subcontinent - and guarantee the rejection of any project with his name attached.And apparently MIT Media Lab Europe was not much better.
The Irish public auditor found that after five years and nearly 50 million euros, most of which was public money, the place had produced just 24 scientific papers and 12 useless patents.Now that doesn't sound like the leadership you want to entrust at least $140 million USD and the minds of 1 million of your next generation to, now does it?
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Here's a Businessweek story about the MIT Media Labs Asia fiasco. During its existence, it ran almost exclusively on government money, with virtually nothing to show for it.
Oops! The URL didn't get through. Here it is:
http://tinyurl.com/bxs0 (shortened)
Ouch, check out how bad the MIT India sniping has become: http://in.news.yahoo.com/070217/48/6c7rf.html
No tears as India ends MIT contract
A much-hyped research collaboration between the Government and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has ended, with both sides taking potshots at each other.
MIT claims it walked out due to differences with Communications and IT Minister Arun Shourie, as reports in the international media quoting Media Lab's US chairman Nicholas Negroponte indicate. Shourie, however, has said MIT's cavalier attitude was responsible for ending the agreement to jointly run Media Lab Asia. The projects under it, he said, would continue with the guidance of scientists at the IITs.
Media Lab Asia was started in 2001 to help develop technologies for the economically weaker sections, with affordable wireless and Net technology that could offer everything from low-cost computers to online medical and matrimonial services.
MIT today said there were differences with Shourie over focus and management of research projects. A senior Media Lab scientist Walter R Bender claimed Shourie was making changes in the way research was being conducted.
''The bottomline is the minister wanted to run it like other programmes,'' Bender said. ''That's not the way the Media Lab works. The Media Lab bets on people, not on products.''
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