Though an administrative mess and a flop by bureaucratic standards, the interesting thing about the short-term interaction of Media Lab Asia with the MIT, Indian NGO community and India’s IITs is that it had a surprisingly large impact.
Michael Best’s recent memoir of Media Lab Asia (www.i4donline.net) provided an inside view of an organisation torn by conflicts between big egos. Certainly the Media Lab Asia suffered, however I think that the article missed the most interesting part of the story: how did the world change because of the short term interaction between MIT, the Indian NGO community, and India’s IITs? MIT tends not to evaluate its programme primarily by bureaucratic standards
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