News & Stories

Ingenuity, design, and human spirit

The Azraq refugee camp in Jordan hosts about 35,000 people displaced by the Syrian civil war, who live in rows of small white steel sheds. Several years ago, a camp resident named Majid Al-Kanaan undertook a project to combat the visual and existential monotony of camp life. Using clay and stones from camp terrain, he […]

Inaugural fund supports early-stage collaborations between MIT and Jordan

MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI), together with the Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation (AHSF), the cultural and social responsibility arm of the Arab Bank, recently created a new initiative to support collaboration with the Middle East. The MIT-Jordan Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation Seed Fund is providing awardees with financial grants up to $30,000 to […]

Faculty seed projects grow into pandemic research opportunities

Global partnerships are a fundamental component of research at MIT — even during this time of suspended travel. MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI) supports those connections via MISTI Global Seed Funds (GSF). GSF enables participating faculty teams to collaborate with international peers, either at MIT or abroad, to develop and launch joint research projects. MISTI […]

MIT deepens connections to the Middle East

Since MIT’s first major collaboration in the Middle East in the 1970s, the Institute has deepened its connection and commitment to the region, expanding to create the MIT-Arab World Program through the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI). This year, partnering with the Abdul Hameed Shoman Foundation (AHSF) in Jordan, the program is launching […]

MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab to launch research center at American University in Cairo

The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at MIT is launching a new regional research center in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to focus on innovative research and policy engagement to reduce poverty. Policy challenges in the MENA region are complex and interconnected: Children in the region have among the lowest learning […]

When culture clashes with Covid-19

In China, wearing masks during an epidemic is a readily accepted practice — unlike the situation in, say, the United States or some European countries, where the issue of mask-wearing is revealing civic and political fault lines. To what extent are these differences attributable to the “culture” of each country? And how much have widespread […]