NextLab is the model for a next generation lab at MIT: a 2.0, disaggregated, collaborative research, teaching and deployment effort designed as a social network and run through a web services platform that leverages expertise anywhere, any time, and can be replicated in other locations around the world quickly and easily.

NextLab’s objective is to address global challenges through the development of open-source mobile platforms designed to scale through academia-corporate partnerships, the creation of new open source initiatives, or the launch of for-profit ventures.

NextLab partners with forward looking companies to identify and address opportunities of innovation in their industries through mobile technologies. We then develop the framework to address these problems more broadly as global challenges for the common good.

This framework becomes the basis for broad research, teaching, and deployment consortia, all of which build mobile platforms to address these challenges, collaborating not only with industry but also with local universities familiar with the social, economic and cultural intricacies needed for successful on-site deployments.