Rather a large family with extensive interests.
Rather a busy family with fingers in many pots.
A very, very interesting family.
Eldest son of Dimitri John and Catherine Coumantaros Negroponte, John Negroponte has an intriguing history, one that borders on the macbre.
As son of a Greek shipping magnate John was schooled at Phillips Exeter Academy, 1956 graduate, Yale University, 1960 graduate, a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity where he hung out with William H. T. Bush, uncle of President George W. Bush, and Porter Goss, former Director of Central Intelligence and Director of the Central Intelligence Agency under Negroponte from 2005 to 2006. He joined the Foreign Service, after dropping out of Harvard in less than a semester.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
During the Reagan administration, 1981-1989, Negroponte's history gets a tad murky. Robert Parry discusses Negroponte's tenure as Ambassador to Honduras at:
http://educate-yourself.org/...
and raises this question about Negroponte's activities 1981-85:
Were you oblivious to the Honduran military’s human rights violations and drug trafficking, or did you just ignore these problems for geopolitical reasons?
According to an April 13, 2005 New York Times editorial:
He helped word a secret 1983 presidential "finding" authorizing support for the contras, as the Nicaraguan rebels were known, and met regularly with Honduran military officials to win and retain their backing for the covert action, the documents show.
http://query.nytimes.com/...
in regard to George W. Bush's nomination of Negroponte as the first director of national intelligence. Peter Kornbluh archives more extensive information about Mr. Negroponte at:
http://www.gwu.edu/...
But, enough about John Negroponte, so boring, the torture, the intrigue, the commerce with graduates of The School of Americas (or, is it the schooling of Americas in the most torturous sense?).
There is younger brother Nicholas Negroponte. He is an architect and computer scientist best known as the founder and Chairman Emeritus of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab. He founded MIT's Architecture Machine Group, combination lab and think tank concerned with human-computer interfaces, was involved in the creation of Wired Magazine as the first investor, contributing a monthly column from 1993 to 1998. These columns were expanded into a 1995 book, Being Digital.
In 2000, Negroponte stepped down as director of the Media Lab but retained the role of laboratory Chairman but in 2006, Negroponte stepped down as lab chairman to focus more fully on his work with One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) while retaining his appointment as professor at MIT.
In November 2005, at the World Summit on the Information Society held in Tunis, Negroponte unveiled a $100 laptop computer, The Children's Machine, designed for students in the developing world. The project is part of a broader program by One Laptop Per Child, a non-profit organisation started by Negroponte and other Media Lab faculty, to extend Internet access in developing countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
According to Wikipedia, Nicholas sits on the corporate boards of Motorola, Velti, privately-held Ambient Devices and has invested in over 30 startup companies over the last 30 years, including Zagats, Wired, Ambient Devices, Skype and Velti.
There are two other Negroponte brothers, filmmaker Michel who has directed "Space Coast," "Silver Valley," JUPITER'S WIFE, "No Accident," and W.I.S.O.R., and other brother George, an artist.