
Becoming a Professor - miraj
https://joi.ito.com/weblog/2016/06/02/becoming-a-prof.html
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Isamu
His media lab bio:

Joichi "Joi" Ito has been recognized for his work as an activist,
entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and advocate of emergent democracy, privacy,
and Internet freedom. As director of the MIT Media Lab, he is currently
exploring how radical new approaches to science and technology can transform
society in substantial and positive ways. Soon after coming to MIT, Ito
introduced mindfulness meditation training to the Media Lab. Together with The
Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi, founding director of The Dalai Lama Center for
Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT, Ito is promoting the contribution
that awareness and focus can bring to the creativity process.

Ito has served as both board chair and CEO of Creative Commons, and sits on
the boards of Sony Corporation, Knight Foundation, the John D. and Catherine
T. MacArthur Foundation, and The New York Times Company. In Japan, he is
executive researcher of KEIO SFC, and he was a founder of Digital Garage, and
helped establish and later became CEO of the country’s first commercial
Internet service provider. He was an early investor in numerous companies,
including Flickr, Six Apart, Last.fm, littleBits, Formlabs, Kickstarter, and
Twitter.

Ito’s honors include TIME magazine’s "Cyber-Elite” listing in 1997 (at age 31)
and selection as one of the "Global Leaders for Tomorrow" by the World
Economic Forum (2001). In 2008, BusinessWeek named him one of the "25 Most
Influential People on the Web." In 2011, he received the Lifetime Achievement
Award from the Oxford Internet Institute. In 2013, he received an honorary
D.Litt from The New School in New York City, and in 2015 an honorary Doctor of
Humane Letters degree from Tufts University. In 2014, he was inducted into the
SXSW Interactive Hall of Fame; also In 2014, he was one of the recipients of
the Golden Plate award from the Academy of Achievement.

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doall
From the NYT article in 2011:

“The choice is radical, but brilliant,” said Larry Smarr, director of the
California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, a
University of California laboratory that pursues a similar research agenda to
the Media Laboratory. “He can position the lab at the edge of change and
propel it for a decade.”

Mr. Ito’s appointment comes at a time when the Media Lab, as well as other
information technology research centers, have struggled to reclaim the
financing levels that were characteristic of the era of the dot-com boom.
Although the lab gets the bulk of its $35 million annual budget from corporate
and government sponsors, that amount has declined measurably as a percentage
of the overall budget during the last decade, Dr. Negroponte said.

“Funding got tight in 2002 and even tighter in the last economic downturn,” he
said. That has made fund-raising the highest priority for the new director, he
said. However, he added that Mr. Ito’s particular leadership qualities made
him stand out among the 250 candidates who were considered for the position.

“Joi is very good at enabling others,” he said. “I’ve never met a 44-year-old
who is able to enable others in this way. Most people who are at that age are
into themselves and their career.”

L. Rafael Reif, the provost of M.I.T., called Mr. Ito “the right person to
lead the Media Lab today,” describing him as “an innovative thinker who
understands the tremendous potential of technology and, in particular, the
Internet, to influence education, business, and society in general.”

Mr. Ito’s colleagues minimize the fact that he is without academic
credentials. “He has credibility in an academic context,” said Lawrence
Lessig, a professor at Harvard Law School who co-founded Creative Commons. Mr.
Ito is currently chairman. “We’ve been collaborators, and I’ve stolen many
ideas from him and turned them into my own.”

The Media Lab will benefit from a director who has Mr. Ito’s global
connections, said John Seely Brown, former director of Xerox’s Palo Alto
Research Center. “What they really need right now is to have a two-way
connection to the outside world. Who more to do that than Joi?”

[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/26/science/26lab.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/26/science/26lab.html)

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PhoenixWright
Wow for an institution like MIT to offer a professorship to someone so clearly
uncrdentialed sends a horrible signal to faculty and students. I will not talk
about this persons lack of credentials because apparently that's a personal
attack but I will say that academia and professorsship has everything to do
with the philosophy of a subject not just its practice. I would never hire a
surgeon who never went to medical school or a rocket scientist who didn't have
a phD. Maybe they've achieved knowledge outside of academia, if that's the
case that's where they should practice there skills, but to now have them
share that unique and disorganized philosophy with students trying to learn
structurally is unfair to the hard work and sacrifice those students have made
to be able to get to MIT in the first place. They've earned the right to be
taught and mentored by someone who has taken the same path they have and put
in the time and admirable effort to study their subject academically.

Our prestigious universities like MIT are institutions that are aspirational
to so many. Those who have taken the long and arduous path from student to
researcher and then professors deserve the fruits of there labor. This is a
slap in the face to so many people who have dedicated their lives to the
advancement of knowledge.

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obmelvin
It's also a pretty big insult to say that Ito doesn't deserve the job solely
because he doesn't meet a cookie cutter list of credentials. MITs Media Lab is
an amazing position and there is no way in hell they would've given the
position to someone that doesn't wholey deserve it. Just look at the
appointment of the head researcher for YC basic income project. New PhD
student chosen over tenured professors from great institutions. Obviously, not
everyone is the exception, but some people have qualities that aren't going to
be noticed by someone reading an Internet article.

This sends a signal to students in the same way bill Gates sends a signal to
students saying "drop out and you'll become a billionaire." you'd be an idiot
to try and exactly replicate the unconventional paths of certain successful
individuals. Do you _really_ think just because he didn't follow the same path
he can't help students ? Do you really think he doesn't bring things to the
table that others don't? Do you really think he will stop students from
getting what you mention from, I don't know, everyone else who went through
the same path? Give me a break.

