By Ting Yu

In 1989, Brent Britton (’94) was wrapping up a computer science degree at the University of Maine and mulling over his career prospects. He figured he could get a job as a programmer at IBM or Digital Equipment Corp., a typical path for many of his classmates. But Britton had always had a penchant for the cutting edge.

He put himself through college by working as a systems operator at the campus computing center—“those old mainframe computers with the tapes swirling,” he says. But on his own time, Britton dabbled in new technologies. He wrote his first AI program in his junior year and published a digital humor magazine on the university’s primitive networked computer system. When Britton read about a groundbreaking new graduate program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he decided to apply.

Founded just a few years earlier, MIT’s Media Lab sought to bring together bright young innovators in engineering, technology, and design to solve real-world problems. “It was basically advanced computer science and artificial intelligence,” Britton says. “People like [AI and computing pioneers] Marvin Minsky and Alan Kay were there. It was amazing people doing amazing things.”