MIT Museum Announces the Inaugural MIT Future Fest

The MIT Museum has announced its inaugural MIT Future Fest, programmed between September 30–October 4 across MIT’s campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Positioned as a global platform for interdisciplinary exchange, the gathering will feature 2024 Nobel laureate Daron Acemoglu, MoMA curator Paola Antonelli, architect and Venice Architecture Biennale curator Carlo Ratti, designer Behnaz Farahi, biomechatronics pioneer Hugh Herr, and aerospace engineer Dava Newman, among many others. The festival culminates with the return of the Cambridge Science Carnival, expected to attract more than 20,000 visitors and featuring over 100 STEAM-focused activities.

Organized in partnership with MIT Technology Review and the MIT Morningside Academy for Design, the festival will open MIT’s labs, workshops, theaters, and public spaces for exhibitions, performances, talks, tours, and hands-on experiences focused on future-facing themes including A.I., quantum science, climate, health, manufacturing, and ocean research. The event will also debut EmTech Future, unveil the new MET Warehouse—home of MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning—and launch the MIT Museum’s new thematic season on OCEANS, featuring exhibitions such as “Sensing Oceans” and “Crochet Coral Reef.”

“MIT Future Fest opens up MIT like never before—transforming it into a living playground of ideas,” shares The Mark R. Epstein Director, MIT Museum, Michael John Gorman. “This inaugural festival is about more than access; it’s about connection, creating a new global platform where people can encounter MIT’s creativity, test possibilities, and build unexpected collaborations across disciplines and borders.”

“MIT has always been ‘of the world,’” shared MIT President Sally Kornbluth. “A university that energetically embraces its responsibility to bring knowledge to bear on the world’s great challenges. With MIT Future Fest, we invite our neighbors to join us in the exhilarating work of exploration and innovation–whether they come from around the corner, across the country, or around the world.”