Raised in
East Windsor, New Jersey, Pinkett graduated from
Hightstown High School in neighboring
Hightstown. He was a three sport athlete (soccer, basketball, track and field) in high school. with a
BS in
electrical engineering. At Rutgers, he was the recipient of the James Dickson Carr and Paul Robeson scholarships. He was captain of the Men’s Track and Field Team, competing as a high jumper and long jumper, In 1994, he was named the
Walter Byers Scholarship winner as the
NCAA's top male scholar athlete, and received recognition as an
USA TODAY College All-Academic First Team member and NCAA Academic All-American. Pinkett was inducted into the Cap and Skull Honor Society, and served two terms as president of MEET, the Rutgers Chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers. In 1994, Pinkett was selected as the first
African American Rhodes Scholar from Rutgers. He attended the
University of Oxford from 1994 to 1996 as a member of
Keble College, where he earned an
MSc in
computer science. After Oxford, Pinkett attended
MIT from 1996 to 1998, where he graduated with a second MS, this time in electrical engineering, and an
M.B.A. from the
MIT Sloan School of Management through the Leaders for Global Operations program. He continued his education at MIT, where he earned a
PhD in
media arts and sciences from the
MIT Media Laboratory in 2001. Pinkett's PhD thesis is titled "Creating Community Connections: Sociocultural Constructionism and an Asset-Based Approach to Community Technology and Community Building." ==
The Apprentice==