How MIT Plans to Create a Better World

June 8, 2016 – Every university is a collection of bright minds focused on answering questions about what is yet to be known. But how many of them launch a campaign focused on solving the Earth’s most compelling problems?

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of a few institutes of higher learning that likes to tackle humanity’s persistent challenges through the marriage of science and technology. In the last month the university launched a campaign for a better world. The plan is to raise $5 billion ($2.6 billion already in the bank) from “alumni and friends.” The money will be used to unlock new knowledge and technology. It will attract the best minds on the planet to work with MIT’s existing faculty and resources. It will fund undergraduate financing, fellowships, research chairs and innovative research facilities.

Among the immediate challenges:

• understanding climate change and converting this to climate action
• developing clean energy, clean water and nourishing food
• detecting disease before there are symptoms
• ending Alzheimer’s

Stated MIT’s President, L. Rafael Reif, “Humanity faces urgent challenges—challenges whose solutions depend on marrying advanced technical and scientific capabilities with a deep understanding of the world’s political, cultural, and economic complexities.”

Reif in the launch of this important campaign describes MIT as focused “on inventing the future.” He states that the university pushes “past the edges of human understanding,” makes “new ways of seeing, and….new ways of making.”

The better world campaign will focus on these disciplines:

• discovery science through a focus on basic research that translates into scientific breakthroughs and practical solutions.
• mobilizing the effort to address our human impact on the health of the planet, developing a sustainable campus as a model for the world, and finding solutions to create a healthy future.
• improvements in human health through unconventional collaborations focused on prevention, diagnosis and treatment.
• innovation and entrepreneurship to transform discovery and invention into practical solutions that make a difference in the world.
• lifelong digital learning, OpenCourseWare, and creating a 21st century educational environment.

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