Outside the Box: Crossing Disciplines at MIT profiles three prominent interdisciplinary researchers at MIT. Profiles include Maria Zuber, a geophysicist renowned for her research on planetary surfaces; Vladimir Bulović, an electrical engineer developing lightweight solar cells; and Paula Hammond, a materials scientist creating new nanomaterials for cancer treatment. Throughout this 16-minute documentary, Outside the Box shows how MIT’s collaborative problem-solving culture often leads scientists to seek answers and ideas outside their own discipline.
How do the innovative technologies developed at MIT change the world? How are new drugs brought to market, new energy solutions deployed, and new information technology products distributed? The answer is innovation-based entrepreneurship. From its founding, MIT has been an engine of both local and global economic growth, playing a key role in the creation of thousands of companies and millions of jobs. More recently, MIT sits at the center of an entrepreneurial boom due to an “entrepreneurial ecosystem”—an informal network of groups dedicated to nurturing and encouraging entrepreneurship. The Ecosystem: Nurturing Entrepreneurship at MIT looks at the development of this ecosystem, how it works, and the role it plays in MIT’s ongoing commitment to creating innovations that make a difference.
“The mission of MIT is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.” This 13 minute video provides an overview of how MIT has remained true to its mission by documenting its history and current global efforts. Historical features include Ellen Swallow Richards’ contributions to water purification, MIT’s technological advancements during WWI and WWII, and the Institute’s key role in the Apollo program. MIT in Service pays tribute to MIT faculty who have served the nation in administrative and advisory roles in Washington and highlights a D-Lab class that worked to build schools in Cambodia.
Common Threads: The Evolving Student Experience at MIT presents an exciting overview of MIT’s changing public face and the growing diversity of its student body. Drawing upon interviews with MIT presidents, professors, alumni and students, this documentary presents an historical look at the complex factors that have significantly reshaped MIT’s student body—including both the expansion of MIT’s educational mission and changes in the broader culture of the United States and the world. Yet even as the student body has diversified, Common Threads shows that MIT remains a magnet for students who define themselves through a shared pursuit of academic excellence, intellectual rigor, and a profound desire to make a difference in the world—a collective self-image that hasn’t changed.
This 11-minute documentary — Founding of MIT: Persistence of Vision — examines the challenges faced by MIT’s founder William Barton Rogers and explores how his founding principles continue to influence today’s MIT.