Mit's Media Lab was set up in 1985 by a group of radical thinkers. They weren't a typical group of computer enthusiasts; they included Jerome Wiesner (then president of MIT), digital guru Nicholas Negroponte, a filmmaker, a graphic designer, a composer, a physicist, two mathematicians and a group of researchers.

Negroponte explains: "We came together in the early 1980s as a counterculture to the establishment of computer science, which at the time was still preoccupied with programming languages, operating systems, network protocols and system architectures."

The common bond among the Media Lab group was a belief that computers would dramatically alter and affect the quality of everyday life.

The lab is housed in a building designed by world-renowned architect I.M. Pei, who designed the glass pyramid at the Louvre in Paris. There are some 150 postgraduate students involved in research programmes and about 200 undergraduates who work there assisting projects. Media Lab began as a radical departure. It was called crazy by some, but it has since become an establishment in itself. It houses the cutting edge of digital research.

And it's coming to Ireland in the form of MediLabEurope. The new centre - the first outside the US - will focus on new approaches to Internet-related technologies and applications, including e-commerce, and on interactive and multimedia applications. Nicholas Negroponte will serve as acting director during its start-up phase.

The mission is to "prepare future generations of young researchers, inventors and artists, primarily from Ireland but also from elsewhere in Europe, to become international entrepreneurs and leaders in communications, multimedia and the learning arts and sciences."

You can learn more about Media Lab on the web (where else?) at www.media.mit.edu.