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THE IDEA FACTORY

THE ATLANTIC | Depending on where you look, you could easily mistake the famed Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a robotics laboratory...or an architecture firm... or a computer-programming office...or maybe a hospital, Atlantic explains. The engineers, designers, scientists, and physicians who constitute the two dozen research groups housed there work in what may be the world’s most interesting, most hyper-interdisciplinary think tank. Researchers end up pollinating other projects with insights and ideas, within a hive of serendipitous collaboration.

Atlantic goes onto explain that over the past 26 years, the lab has spawned the technology behind the Kindle, Guitar Hero, and a host of other groundbreaking innovations; while today, researchers within the building are creating self-driving cars, genetically engineered neurons, and chatty robots—and the fact that they’re doing such disparate work in close proximity helps account for their success.

The Lab is continue to innovate itself. “We’re going to be thinking about how we innovate, how we work together, how the space is laid out,” the lab's new director says. “I want to focus on how we can enhance positive serendipity even more, because I think we can.”

Read the full article in Atlantic Magazine online