Transforming Learning and Education — Today’s approaches to learning and education are woefully outmoded. Digital technologies provide an historic opportunity to transform how and what people learn—in schools, in workplaces, and in their everyday lives. We are developing new technologies and new strategies to support a “constructionist” approach to learning, helping people take charge of their own learning throughout the day and throughout their lives.

e-Commerce — We are examining how new technologies can empower local communities to create new, sustainable economic organizations. For example, we are developing technologies that allow rural workers to better participate in regional marketplaces, new e-commerce strategies that enable remote communities to reach global markets, and new forms of economic collaboration.

Multicultural Computing — Most technologies today were designed for a very narrow set of users. With global connectedness comes a need for pluralism. We are working on multilingual approaches to computing, enabling people to communicate across linguistic boundaries. We are also developing multimodal approaches, extending computers to understand and produce speech (not just text and graphics). These new technologies will open up computing to a broader range of ages, cultural traditions, and literacy levels.

Learning Communities — We are developing tools and practices that enable people of all ages to take more active roles in the development of their communities—and to develop new ideas about learning and communities in the process. As community members work together on projects, the community as a whole can develop new knowledge beyond what any individual could on their own.

Ubiquitous Access — Our aim is to develop low-cost technologies so that computing and communications become accessible to everyone on the planet. New wireless technologies will enable communities to leapfrog to the digital world, avoiding the high expense of traditional telecommunications infrastructures.

Rethinking Health Care — Just as new technologies enable people to take more control of their own learning, so too with health care. We are developing low-cost tools to help people monitor and plan for their own health, rather than relying solely on treatment from medical experts.