Michail Bletsas (born March 19, 1967) is a Greek research scientist and the Director of Computing at the MIT Media Lab.

Early life

Bletsas was born in Chania,

Crete Crete ( el, Κρήτη, translit=, Modern: , Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the 88th largest island in the world and the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, after Sicily, Sardinia, Cyprus, and ...

. He studied at

Aristotle University Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phi ...

of Thessaloniki and received a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

computer engineering Computer engineering (CoE or CpE) is a branch of electrical engineering and computer science that integrates several fields of computer science and electronic engineering required to develop computer hardware and software. Computer engineers ...

from

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...

.Biography
as a keynote speaker at the Consumer Communications & Networking Conference, 2007, retrieved 2010-06-23.

Career

Before joining the Media Lab, Bletsas was a Systems Engineer at Aware Inc. He is one of the founders of the Greek mobile advertising and marketing company

Velti Velti is a mobile marketing company offering its solutions to major mobile operators and brands. The company was founded in 2001, went public in London in 2006 and NASDAQ in 2011. In 2013 Blackstone, one of the largest private equity groups with ...

S.A. and he was also one of the leaders in an effort to provide

wireless network A wireless network is a computer network that uses wireless data connections between network nodes. Wireless networking is a method by which homes, telecommunications networks and business installations avoid the costly process of introducing c ...

ing to the island of

Patmos Patmos ( el, Πάτμος, ) is a Greek island in the Aegean Sea. It is famous as the location where John of Patmos received the visions found in the Book of Revelation of the New Testament, and where the book was written. One of the northernmos ...

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

. Since June 23, 2010, Bletsas is an Independent Non-Executive Director of Hellenic Telecommunications Organization SA (

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

, Greece).

OLPC

Michail Bletsas is one of the designers of OLPC's XO laptop. He was one of the principals of the OLPC team where he made various contributions, including the design and implementation of the first embedded layer-2 wifi mesh stack. From February 2006 to January 2009, he was OLPC's Chief Connectivity Officer and VP Advanced Technology and he was member of the group which received the Community category award of the 2007 Index: Award, for the design of the OLPC XO-1 laptop computer.

Conferences

He was a keynote speaker at the 4th and 5th Annual

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

Consumer Communications & Networking Conference in

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

, 2007 and 2008 respectively, at the 8th International Conference on Computer Based Learning in Science in

Heraklion Heraklion or Iraklion ( ; el, Ηράκλειο, , ) is the largest city and the administrative capital of the island of Crete and capital of Heraklion regional unit. It is the fourth largest city in Greece with a population of 211,370 (Urban A ...

, 2007, at Disruptions 2007 in

, and at the 4th Balkan Conference in Informatics in

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area, and the capi ...

, Greece, 2009.Call for participation
BCI 2009, retrieved 2010-06-24.

References

External links

*MIT Media Lab "http://web.media.mit.edu/~mbletsas/" {{DEFAULTSORT:Bletsas, Michael MIT School of Architecture and Planning faculty 1967 births Living people Greek academics One Laptop per Child MIT Media Lab people Aristotle University of Thessaloniki alumni People from Chania