Mary Lou Jepsen (born 1965) was the founding chief technology officer of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), an organization whose mission is to deliver low-cost, mesh-networked laptops en masse to children in developing countries. In January 2005, she joined Nicholas Negroponte to lead the design, development and manufacture of the laptop, and for the entire first year of the effort was the only employee of One Laptop per Child. By the end of 2005, she had completed the initial architecture, led the development of the first prototype (which UN Secretary General Kofi Annan unveiled at a UN summit), and signed up some of the world's largest manufacturers to produce the XO-1.
On December 31, 2007 she left OLPC to start a for-profit company, Pixel Qi, to commercialize some of the technologies she invented at OLPC.
Notably, Jepsen invented the laptop's sunlight-readable display technology and co-invented its power management system, and has transformed these inventions into ready-to-ship hardware, integrated into the XO-1.
