The Nexus of Brilliance and Wonder

Amar G. Bose, longtime MIT professor and founder of Bose Corporation, always believed in the power of insatiable curiosity to drive scientific inquiry. When he passed away in 2013, he left a portion of his company to MIT with the hope that it could be used to help support researchers who, like himself, would be willing to push the limits of current knowledge. The Professor Amar G. Bose Research Grant Program empowers MIT researchers eager to explore science that’s unconventional, original, and sometimes even controversial—and as a result, unfundable by other means.

Following a wide-ranging discovery process with stakeholders at MIT and the Bose Corporation, and a number of intensive interviews with the grant recipients, Libretto developed a site architecture featuring three main sections focused on the research projects themselves, the nature of the program, and an innovative, eye-catching multimedia page focused on the life of Amar Bose. The research projects cover broad intellectual terrain, ranging from plans for developing 100% efficient lighting to a mathematical approach to scanning the cosmos for alien life. Each is mapped to a framework that describes the initial concept, the progress to date, and the potential implications for the future, helping to ensure that the details are accessible and digestible for scientists and non-scientists alike.

Our mission was to showcase the bold experimentation this program makes possible, and celebrate researchers making new discoveries in an era of waning and increasingly risk-averse federal funding. But how do you translate some of the world’s most complex, cross-disciplinary research into engaging and accessible public content? By creating a dynamic, visually striking website that gives each researcher—and each unorthodox project—its own space to shine.