MIT Future Fest: Open Labs + Open Minds

From Wednesday, September 30th through Sunday, October 4th, MIT’s Future Fest will take place all over campus. The festival passes are sold out for this year, however many of Future Fest’s events are free and open to the public. There are events to explore such as Future Lab: Design Intelligence Lab at MET Warehouse. The MIT Museum is free during the festival and on Sunday October 4th the Cambridge Science Carnival at the Kendall/MIT Open Space is open to all as well.

What To Expect

The Open Labs were a hot ticket and many of those slots filled up very quickly. MIT’s Future Fest panels and discussions address topics ranging from How Will We Grow Food and Future Lab: Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems to Mind, Body and Soul: The Frontiers of Neuroscience, Health, and Artificial Intelligence and Inside jam_bot: Building an AI Musical Partner. There are walking tours, art exhibits, open labs, panel discussions among other events. While the website is not the easiest to browse and sort for events the program is colour coded and arranged by day here.

Speakers

Speakers and participants include the following experts in their fields (a full list if participants can be found here)

• Daron Acemoğlu, 2024 Nobel Prize Winner and Institute Professor, Department of Economics, MIT
• Paola Antonelli, Senior Curator of Architecture and Design and Head of Research and Development at the Museum of Modern Art
• Behnaz Farahi, Artist, Designer and Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Sciences; Morningside Academy for Design Professor, MIT
• Danna Freedman, Frederick George Keyes Professor of Chemistry, MIT Quantum Initiative Faculty Director
• Hugh Herr, Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, MIT
• Manolis Kellis, Professor, Computer Science, MIT; Head, MIT Computational Biology Group; Principal Investigator, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, MIT
• Sally Kornbluth, President of MIT
• Dava Newman, Apollo Program Professor; Director, Human Systems Lab, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, MIT
• Ana Rajčević, Distinguished Artist and Research Scientist, MIT
• Carlo Ratti, Architect; Curator of the 2025 Venice Biennale of Architecture; Professor of Practice of Urban Technologies and Planning, MIT; and Designer of the 2026 Winter Olympics Torch
• Sanjay Sarma, Fred Fort Flowers (1941) & Daniel Fort Flowers (1941) Professor in Mechanical Engineering, MIT
• Daniel Sundlin, Partner at Bjarke Ingels Group
• Skylar Tibbits, Designer and Computer Scientist; Associate Professor; Director of Undergraduate Programs; and Assistant Director for Education at the Morningside Academy for Design, MIT
• Danielle Wood, Aerospace Engineer and Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences; Associate Professor (Joint) of Aeronautics and Astronautics, MIT

Festival Structure

The festival is built around the structure of: move, think, discover, and play.

Move; encourages attendees to start the day with a walking tour of some sort, which also helps acquaint attendees with the campus.

Think; brings in the panels, interviews and conversations that ensue from the many presentations scheduled.

Discover; refers to the open labs and many opportunities to explore MIT and Future Fest.

Play; is the “after party”. They say knowledge sets in after the learning so engage in the performances, salons, concerts, and late-night experiences to let the day’s discoveries gel.