 MIT has kept pace with and helped to advance the digital age . In addition to developing the predecessors to modern computing and networking technologies , students , staff , and faculty members at Project MAC , the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory , and the Tech Model Railroad Club wrote some of the earliest interactive computer video games like Spacewar ! and created much of modern hacker slang and culture . Several major computer @-@ related organizations have originated at MIT since the 1980s : Richard Stallman 's GNU Project and the subsequent Free Software Foundation were founded in the mid @-@ 1980s at the AI Lab ; the MIT Media Lab was founded in 1985 by Nicholas Negroponte and Jerome Wiesner to promote research into novel uses of computer technology ; the World Wide Web Consortium standards organization was founded at the Laboratory for Computer Science in 1994 by Tim Berners @-@ Lee ; the OpenCourseWare project has made course materials for over 2 @,@ 000 MIT classes available online free of charge since 2002 ; and the One Laptop per Child initiative to expand computer education and connectivity to children worldwide was launched in 2005 . 
