Regardless of the Thiel Fellowship, this is the guy that I would want on the inside taking academic ideas from research to revolution. Ito represents a kind of energy and enthusiasm that higher education direly needs.
More creative, free-thinking skeptics of academia should definitely be empowered to lead it. I see Ito as one of them, and I think this is an inspired choice.
I saw Ito on a panel debate, in the Silicon Valley Comes to Oxford conference -- incidentally the place where he was first approached regarding the position [1].
If Biz Stone made the funny web-cowboy comments, Ito definitely made the thoughtful ones. He came across as a thinker. Although a complete outsider's view, I'm really looking forward to how he will run the Media Lab.
Of course, no other university would have nominated such a person for such a position. Lead the way, MIT.
Unusual but interesting choice. Joi is a real networker and has lots of friends in tech. Maybe the Media Lab under Ito will have more direct influence on and be influenced by people who create outside academia.
True, but his new job won't have much to do with undergraduate degrees; the Media Lab is a research-only lab that doesn't have an undergraduate program (some of the profs do also teach in MIT's undergraduate programs, but in that capacity they'll report to someone other than Ito).
I first heard of Joi when he made an impromptu visit to the Cambridge (UK) Computer Labs during the "Silicon Valley Comes to Cambridge" conference in November. He really impressed me and my undergrad friends - here are some choice quotes from him that won us over at his talk:
More creative, free-thinking skeptics of academia should definitely be empowered to lead it. I see Ito as one of them, and I think this is an inspired choice.