Media Lab Europe (MLE) was founded in July 2000 as a collaborative venture between the Irish Government and the Massachusetts ... Institute of Technology (MIT). Modeled after the Media Lab at MIT (MITML), Media Lab Europe was established as a hybrid between academia and the corporate world to create a new centre of excellence in digital technologies in Ireland. By working with partners from industry, academia and the public sector, Media Lab Europe drew on a wide variety of viewpoints in developing its activities. The results of its work were made available to its partners so that ideas that transform the way we live and work could move from the laboratory to implementation. Media Lab Europe brought together scientists, engineers and artists from different backgrounds, disciplines, cultures and nationalities to create technologies and explore applications never been dreamt of before. From the research conducted and the tools invented came advancements in science, new knowledge, extensions of boundaries, and improvements to human life. Media Lab Europe was the European research partner of the MIT Media Lab, founded in 1985 by Nicholas Negroponte and former MIT President Jerome Wiesner, which grew out of the Architecture Machine Group in the School of Architecture at MIT. Since opening in 1985, MITML has created numerous technologies that have become part of our daily lives. The Media Lab Europe wound down operations in 2005 after rounds of negotiation between the founding entities reached a stalemate. The Irish government preferred to incorporate MLE into its national network of academic labs while MIT preferred that MLE remained a wholly independent organization to avoid any confusion in branding or inadvertent association of the MIT name with universities with whom MIT had no formal affiliation. read more