MIT public events are being webcast and promoted on WGBH-TV's web site through a collaboration between the new WGBH Forum Network and MIT World , a web video/audio project from the Center for Advanced Educational Services.
The first MIT World event, now being featured on the WGBH Forum Network web site, is "Inventing Modern America: From the Microwave to the Mouse," an authors@mit panel discussion featuring Douglas Engelbart, Brian Hubert, Raymond Kurzweil, Robert Langer and Steve Wozniak held in November 2001.
In addition to exposure on the its web site, WGBH will promote the lectures on its three television stations in Boston and Springfield, its radio stations in Boston and on Cape Cod, in its member magazine and in other member communications.
MIT World is an inaugural partner with the WGBH Forum Network, a public broadcasting initiative showing streamed video of public events from libraries, museums and higher education institutions in the Boston area. Selected videos from the MIT World site will be featured along with a permanent link to MIT World.
The WGBH Forum Network, with major support from the Lowell Institute, presents lectures, discussions and debates from New England's foremost scholars, authors, artists and social leaders. These events are hosted by world-class cultural and educational organizations.
Lectures included are from MIT as well as the Cambridge Forum, Ford Hall Forum and the Harvard Graduate School of Education and WGBH's own lectures.
MIT World's first year of operation was sponsored by the Provost's Office. "MIT World is an important component of MIT's outreach to its alumni, corporate partners and to the world in general," said Provost Robert A. Brown. "It complements MIT's OpenCourseWare initiative by focusing on activities on our campus. We look forward to the tie with WGBH to extend our outreach activities."
"We're delighted that some of MIT's public events and lectures that are available from MIT World have been chosen for inclusion in WGBH's Forum Network," said Professor Richard Larson, director of the Center for Advanced Educational Services (CAES). "Our inclusion in this web site points to the success of the project, and we look forward to working with WGBH in this exciting new venture."
A year ago, MIT World was still in the idea stage. Today, with the support of the Industrial Liaison Program and the Alumni Association, this open video-streaming web site has captured 59 videos of MIT public lectures and events, and will have 75 lectures available by the end of the academic year.
The events, which can be called up by viewers from Singapore to Somerville, include the lecture on "The Coldest Matter in the Universe" by Wolfgang Ketterle, co-winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in physics, and Draper Prize winner Robert Langer speaking on "Biomaterials and How They Will Change our Lives."
Nobel laureates David Baltimore, John Hume, Charles Townes, Franco Modigliani, Paul A. Samuelson and Robert M. Solow all have a presence, as do Sloan School of Management Professor Lester Thurow, and the late computer visionary Michael Dertouzos.
"I think there's a great deal of interest in the intellectual offerings from MIT, and inclusion in the WGBH Forum Network will certainly enable MIT World to reach a wider audience," said Laurie Everett, MIT World's project manager who joined CAES last September and has worked closely with WGBH on this initiative.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on June 5, 2002.
