Masi Oka, Hiro Nakamura from "Heroes", Becomes OLPC Ambassador

Nicolas Negroponte's OLPC initiative has encountered some pretty big problems lately, due to the fact the proposed $100 price tag will most likely turn into a $200, not to mention the fact that Intel's Classmate PC seems to be a lot more popular in the developing countries than its OLCP counterpart. And in order to perhaps pull out the whole initiative from this dire situation, Negroponte's side has been nominated as (and accepted the part of) global ambassador for the One Laptop per Child organization. In his role as OLPC ambassador, Oka will appear in public service announcements, both online and on television, to promote the importance of empowering children with learning tools and Internet connectivity.

Although his role in the hit show has almost nothing to do with technology, it seems that Masi's lifelong interest in technology and learning was established long before he accepted to play the part of "Hiro Nakamura" or accept OLPC "ambassadorship." After moving to the U.S. from Japan at the age of 6, Masi went on to graduate from Brown University with degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science and a Theatre Arts minor. Oka pursued an acting career while taking his first job at George Lucas' Oscar-winning special effects house Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). Today, despite his successful career as an actor, he continues to provide ILM with technology for groundbreaking effects for more than 30 films.

"Being a part of a global effort that is enabling children to learn, grow and succeed in life is both tremendously gratifying and important to me," said Masi Oka. "I'm very excited about this opportunity to represent One Laptop per Child and bring my love of technology and education to the global community. I believe that it is incredibly important to enable access to learning for all children so that every child has the opportunity to create a better life for themselves, their family and their society."

One Laptop per Child is a non-profit organization created by Nicholas Negroponte and others from the MIT Media Lab to design, manufacture and distribute laptop computers that are sufficiently inexpensive to provide every child in the world access to knowledge and modern forms of education. These XO laptops will be rugged, open source, and so energy efficient that they can be powered by a child manually.

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