Walter Bender

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Walter Bender is the president of One Laptop Per Child Software and Content: the organization coordinating and developing software and content for the $100 laptop project. Between 2000 and 2006, Bender served as the executive director of the MIT Media Lab. He is a former holder of the Alexander W. Dreyfoos Chair at MIT Media Lab.

For more than 20 years, Bender was head of the Media Lab's Electronic Publishing Group. The Electronic Publishing research group was initiated when Bender joined the Architecture Machine Group (the precursor to the Media Lab) in 1978. The research group is, as such, one of the Media Lab's oldest research groups and one of a few that predates the creation of the lab.

Bender's research has attempted to build upon the interactive styles associated with existing media and extend them into domains where a computer is incorporated into the interaction. He has participated in much of the pioneering research in the field of electronic publishing, and personalized, interactive multimedia including news.

Bender earned a BA from Harvard University in 1977 and an MS from MIT in 1980.