Technology Review honored Upton for Raspberry Pi — a $25 computer created to encourage children to learn to program. Concerned about the decline in the number of and skill level of students in computer science, Upton set out to develop a mini-computer at a radical price point so schools could hand them out just like textbooks. Raspberry Pi is a credit card-sized motherboard with a Broadcom system on a chip enabling unsurpassed connectivity and integration, and designed to plug into a TV or be combined with a touch screen to create a tablet. Currently in mass production around the world, Raspberry Pi is dramatically changing how children learn about computers.
Broadcom’s mission is to engineer the impossible, said Scott McGregor, Broadcom’s President and Chief Executive Officer. With the creation of Raspberry Pi, Eben is revolutionizing programming and inspiring millions to learn about computer science for the first time. Congratulations to Eben for innovating a true game changer.
Upton was selected as a member of the 2012 TR35 by a panel of expert judges and the editorial staff of Technology Review, who evaluated more than 250 nominations. He will join other TR35 honorees in discussing their achievements at the EmTech MIT 2012 conference, taking place at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge October 24-26, 2012. All of the TR35 winners for 2012 will be featured in the September/October issue of Technology Review.
This year’s TR35 recipients are applying technology to some our generation’s greatest challenges, and innovating to improve the way we live and work, said Jason Pontin, editor-in-chief and publisher of Technology Review. We look forward to watching these young technology leaders grow and advance over the coming years.