Andrew Lippman

Andy Lippman is a Senior Scientist at MIT and associate director of the MIT Media Lab. He got his BS and MS at MIT, and PhD at EPFL, Lausanne. He has a history working on interactive, personal computing dating from the 1970s. He helped pioneer visual computing and communications systems such as MPEG and digital HDTV. He formed the Media Lab's Digital Life Program that engages 15 researchers and 45 companies in the invention and development of technologies and applications for human creativity and learning. He runs a graduate research group called Viral Communications that most recently has developed applications of digital currency such as solar-powered coins, and blockchain applications for medical records.

Viral Communications

The Viral Gang, 2016

Viral Ideas are grassroot innovations that work at any scale, with no a prior agreement. By contrast, we consider ideas utopian when they work only when everyone agrees in advance to obey those rules. Money is a utopian idea; email and spreadsheets are viral. True virality scales without bound, entails small startup costs, and grows in power with adoption.

Viral Politics

Can we inspire grassroots activism with a challenge?

Calling your senator or representative is intimidating. With FiftyNifty.org it is as easy as making a dinner reservation. FiftyNifty.org simplifies the process of making your opinion known to your congressperson while encouraging your friends to do the same. It’s like a chain letter: grassroots and network-building. We help you make your call and you pass on an invitation for your friends to do the same. Your invite can stress your opinion on the issue. You get points for your call and additional points for calls made by friends in proportion to how close they are to you in your network. The winners are those who get 50 people in 50 states to make a call to their elected officials. A “grand slam” is the network that reaches all 535 members of Congress.

Read the full blog at the Media Lab Medium here

Ultimate Media

Thirty years of communications

Visual Media is going through fundamental changes. It has irretrievably lost its lock on the audience but has gained unprecedented opportunity to evolve the platform by which it is communicated. Evolving apps are as important as ever-changing content, and the social context in which those apps are used is deeply different from the couch-potato model of the past.

Group-Forming Broadcast

VR Production

Sports, news and events are the one evident case where we break media silos and engage in a simultaneous, synchronous, live, social experience. It is a story, but one controlled by reality rather than narrative. We separate broadcasting as a service from broadcasting as a technology and make networks that grow in exponentially in value.