Mitchel Resnick

Mitchel Resnick is Professor of Learning Research at the MIT Media Lab in Boston, where he gained international fame for leading the research group that invented Scratch, a programming platform that is offered as an online space where children program and share interactive stories, games, and animations.

He worked closely with the LEGO company for 30 years, and he was assigned with the LEGO Papert chair for Educational Research. Also at the MIT Media Lab he leads the Lifelong Kindergarten group that explores how new technologies can engage people in creative learning experiences.

In addition to Scratch, Resnick’s research team developed the “programmable brick” technology that inspired the LEGO Mindstorms robotics kit.

Resnick co-founded the Computer Clubhouse project, a worldwide network of after-school centers where young people in low-income communities learn to express themselves creatively with new technologies.

Mitchel Resnick earned a B.A. degree in physics at Princeton University (1978) and M.S. and PhD. degrees in computer science at MIT (1988, 1992). He worked as a science-technology journalist from 1978 to 1983 and has been called all over the world to talk about the creative use of computers in education. In 2011, he was awarded with the McGraw Prize in Education and, in the same year, was listed as one of the 100 most creative people by Fast Company.