Centers and Joint Programs

In collaboration with Bank of America, the Media Lab has established the Center for Future Banking. This center explores how emerging technologies and insights into human behavior can transform the customers' experience and elevate the role of the bank in their financial lives. Researchers seek to invent new ways to anticipate the needs and desires of customers down to the level of the individual, to rethink the experience of bank-customer interactions as virtual and physical reality become increasingly intertwined, and finally to leverage the unique position of a bank to make people's lives simpler and more fulfilling. The Center brings together disciplines ranging from behavioral economics, to computer science, to urban design, in order to take a truly holistic approach to imagining and realizing new possibilities in banking. Its research spans a wide range of physical and social scales, from one-on-one interactions with customers, to new modes of global transactions.

A joint effort between MIT's Media Lab and Comparative Media Studies Program, the Center for Future Civic Media creates technical and social systems for sharing, prioritizing, organizing, and acting on information. The Center uses the term civic media, rather than citizen journalism: civic media is any form of communication that strengthens the social bonds within a community or creates a strong sense of civic engagement among its residents. Civic media goes beyond news gathering and reporting: it ensures the diversity of inputs and mutual respect necessary for democratic deliberation. The Center for Future Civic Media is funded by a four-year grant from the Knight Foundation.

Storytelling is fundamental to being human: it's how we share our experiences, learn from our past, and imagine our future. With the establishment of the Media Lab's Center for Future Storytelling, the Media Lab, together with Plymouth Rock Studios, is rethinking what "storytelling" will be in the 21st century. The Center will take a dynamic new approach to storytelling, developing new creative methods, technologies, and learning programs that recognize and respond to the changing communications landscape. The Center will examine ways for transforming storytelling into social experiences, creating expressive tools for the audience and enabling people from all walks of life to embellish and integrate stories into their lives, making tomorrow's stories more interactive, creative, democratized, and improvisational. It will seek to bridge the real and the virtual, creating tools for both adults and children that allow stories to incorporate synthetic characters and actors, such as robots. It will also pioneer innovative imaging technologies, from new systems for movement capture, to "morphable" movie studios that allow one physical space to represent a variety of settings.

The Communications Futures Program conducts research on industry dynamics, technology opportunities, and regulatory issues that form the basis for communications endeavors of all kinds, from telephony to RFID tags. The program operates through a series of working groups led jointly by MIT researchers and industry collaborators. It is highly participatory, and its agenda reflects the interests of member companies that include both traditional stakeholders and innovators. It is jointly directed by Dave Clark (CSAIL), Charles Fine (Sloan School of Management), Andrew Lippman (Media Lab), and David P. Reed (Media Lab).