A little over two years ago, Mary Lou Jepsen flew to Boston to interview for a professorship at MIT Media Lab. A week later, she got a job in Cambridge—not the professorship, but something even better: chief technology officer of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) project, which is working on an ultracheap but versatile laptop for children in developing countries. If you're an engineer and a job interview turns into a brainstorming session, that's probably a good sign. It certainly was for Jepsen, who spent 2 hours of her "interview" kicking around ideas for the laptop with Nicholas Negroponte, the Media Lab's cofounder. Negroponte had just launched OLPC, a nonprofit organization independent of MIT, and when he asked Jepsen to be its chief technology officer, she immediately agreed. Little did Jepsen, then a Californian, realize she had just signed up for a seemingly permanent seat on a globe-hopping flight. ... http://spectrum.ieee.org/feb07/4900 -- ________________________________________ http://olpc.ellak.gr