Masi Oka to Serve as One Laptop per Child Ambassador
Commitment to Children and education Captures Personal Interests and Commitment to Public Service
from: Business Wire

Emmy and Golden Globe nominated actor Masi Oka, star of NBC's hit ensemble drama series "Heroes" will serve as global ambassador for One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a non-profit organization launched in 2005 with a mission of providing a means for learning, self-expression and exploration to the nearly two billion children of the developing world with little or no access to education. 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.

Masi's lifelong interest in technology and learning was established long before he accepted the lead role as "Heroes'" "Hiro Nakamura" and the 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.

OLPC was founded by MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte to design, manufacture and distribute laptop computers that are sufficiently affordable to provide every child in the world access to new channels of learning, sharing and self-expression.

"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."

Read full release here.


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Needless to say that I'm definitely a huge fan of Masi.

Thanks for posting this. I'm a fan of the OLPC movement and I'm glad to see Masi doing it as well.

I think this is a great idea in general, but it has a large number of potential loopholes.

Not everything on the internet is beneficial to learning.
a way to limit access to learning sights would cause problems on the self expression front.

Theft (or selling the one lap top for food or shelter) would hinder this endevor greatly.

It would need wireless internet access everywhere. (I think this is fixable and not as large an issue as the other two listed above.


I hope if these, and other potential problems can be addressed and fixed, that this program can be a large success around the world. I would love to have children from poorer countries and even the poor in our country have a chance at learning and success.

This is great of Masi. Seems like a great and fitting thing for him to connect himself to. Technology is becoming increasingly important and I hope the OLPC does well.

Those are somethings I thought of as well while reading this.

Regardless, this is really an amazing thing for him to do. The wider availability of education in places where that doesn't seem possible could really change this world.

Potential Yattavian backing, anyone?

Worried about the idiots who could potentially take advantage of this, but oh my goodness, Masi. You make my geeky heart go all a quiver.

Great idea in theory, and I always support education. But in a lot of "developing" countries, there are still alot of places that don't even have electricity, much less wireless internet, or even basic dial-up. Wouldn't teachers, schools, and books have more of an impact? I mean, yeah, computers are awesome, but we didn't have them in school until like the 7th-8th grade, and I still learned ALOT. And there are alot of downsides to the internet, too. Kids can get into alot of trouble if unsupervised. It is a really commendable effort, and education is vital to everyone, but it almost seems like giving a homeless person designer high heels. Yeah, they're nice but where are you going to wear them? (And I've been homeless before..I actually DO know )