Platform for rapid innovation
When Regina Dugan, Facebook’s vice president of engineering and head of Building 8, spoke at Harvard, she described the discipline and architecture required for a company or institution to sustain “a hot cauldron of activity,” producing innovations of lasting impact. Common to the greatest innovations in history is a shared passion for advancing “use-inspired basic research” — which is to say, “audacious science and an application that matters” said the former director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) during her Nov. 7 talk. Affirming the essential value of transformative research in shaping the future, Harvard’s Office of Technology Development (OTD) has established a collaborative research agreement with Facebook. It establishes a platform on which Harvard faculty, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers can quickly and easily pursue joint or sponsored research projects with Facebook, bringing both academic and product-driven perspectives to bear on scientific questions of mutual interest. Harvard is among...