MIT's 150th Birthday: The Network Effect

 

(Click to enlarge)

The students, alumni, and professors at Massachusetts Institute of Technology are a brainy — and busy — bunch. To mark the university's 150th year, Fast Company magazine charted a handful of smart and productive minds with ties to the school. The categories include Entrepreneurs, Inventors, Government Leaders, Astronauts, Athletes, Artists, 76 Nobel Prize Winners, and 2 Radio Host Siblings (Tom and Ray Magliozzi: "Click and Clack" on NPR's Car Talk, Classes of '59 and '72). Among the impressive statistics: MIT grads have founded more than 25,800 companies, and have been issued 166 patents in 2010 alone. Other more notorious achievements include the annual "hacking" by MIT students, like this 25-foot-long fire truck (above right) placed on the Great Dome at the school in 2006. Historical videos and a timeline are featured in MIT's special 150th anniversary website.