As of November 16, 2022: Due to the recent bankruptcy filing of the FTX Cryptocurrency Exchange, and the resignation of the team that managed the FTX Future Fund, the planned MIT Media Lab Future Fellowship will not be supported in 2023/2024.

The Media Lab is delighted to announce the Future Fellowship, a new program to empower students who are committed to ensuring a long and flourishing future.

Supported by the FTX Future Fund, fellows will receive full stipend and tuition as well as $25,000 per year in research costs for ambitiously benevolent projects that could not be accomplished anywhere else. Examples include creating works that expand our moral circle, designing to cultivate wisdom, developing new technologies to promote or safeguard wellbeing, or directly improving the lives of current beings in ways anticipated to benefit future generations. 

If their candidacy is sponsored by a Media Lab faculty member for AY23/24 admissions, candidates will be invited to submit a description of how they will realize an impactful idea at MIT or refine, launch, and scale existing Media Lab research to accomplish as much good as they can. Nominated applicants will be evaluated by a fellowship selection committee consisting of advisors to the FTX Future Fund as well as MAS faculty.

Upon arriving at the MIT Media Lab in September 2023, the first cohort of Fellows will receive speech training from a professional coach and an opportunity to practice clear and persuasive writing guided by Michael Specter, a Staff Writer at The New Yorker. They’ll meet regularly over tea to assist one another in developing, refining, launching, and scaling their projects, and will be enrolled in Safeguarding the Future, a class taught by Specter and Media Lab Professor Kevin Esvelt on promising ways to protect our world. During their time at the Media Lab, Fellows will be connected to external networks and resources likely to help them to launch their ideas.