The MIT factor: celebrating 150 years of maverick genius. Yo-Yo Ma's cello may not be the obvious starting point for a journey into one of the world's great universities.
But, as you quickly realise when you step inside the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), there's precious little about the place that is obvious. The cello is resting in a corner of MIT's celebrated media lab, a hub of techy creativity. There's a British red telephone kiosk standing in the middle of one of its laboratories, while another room is signposted: "Lego learning lab - Lifelong kindergarten. " The cello is part of the Opera of the Future lab run by the infectiously energetic Tod Machover.
Military Tech. Music Tech! Lasers. Education Tech. Large Hadron Collider. Green Tech. Weapon Tech. Video Games.