Walter Bender is a technologist, entrepreneur, and free software advocate. As CTO and Co-founder of Sorcero, Walter leverages technology to enhance the learning capabilities of humans and machines. Walter was a founding member of the MIT Media Lab where he held the Alexander W. Dreyfoos Chair. As Executive Director of the MIT Media Laboratory from 2000 to 2006, Walter oversaw an annual research budget of $40 million and led a team of researchers and graduate students in fields as varied as tangible media and affective computing. In 1992, Walter founded the MIT News in the Future consortium, launching the era of personalized digital news. He earned a Master’s degree from MIT in 1980 and a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University in 1977.