MIT professor emeritus hurt in Hanoi

By Megan Tench, Globe Staff

Seymour Papert, a professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and world-renowned pioneer of artificial intelligence, was in a coma in a Hanoi hospital Thursday after a traffic accident in Vietnam, where he was attending a conference.

Papert, 78, an expert on how children learn, was struck by a motorbike Tuesday while crossing a busy street near his hotel in Hanoi. He was left comatose after he underwent brain surgery at French Hospital on Wednesday to remove a blood clot that had formed. As of last night, he was in stable but critical condition, according to Alexandra Kahn, spokeswoman for the Media Laboratory at MIT.

Papert, who co-founded the Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT and was a founding faculty member at the MIT Media Lab in the 1980s, was the keynote speaker Monday at a conference on teaching mathematics with digital technology. He was among more than 100 international experts from 30 countries who had gathered for the event hosted by the Hanoi Technology University.

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