Awards

MIT announces $250,000 reward for ‘disobedience’

MIT is offering a $250,000 “Disobedience Reward” for someone trying to break the rules and challenge the status quo.

The university’s Media Lab recently announced that the quarter-million dollar prize will go to a person or group of people engaged “in what we believe is extraordinary disobedience for the benefit of society,” according to the award’s website.

“There are people who decide, yeah, I actually gotta be disobedient, I’ve gotta be defiant, I actually need to go against these existing authorities to make the changes that need to happen,” Ethan Zuckerman, an associate professor and director of the Center for Civic Media at the MIT Media Lab, told The Post.

Zuckerman cited Khalida Brohi — a women’s right advocate in Pakistan and former fellow of the Media Lab — as someone who’s done the type of work the prize is hoping to acknowledge, and help push forward.

Brohi, who founded the Sughar Empowerment Society, grew up inside the tribal villages of Pakistan, where women are largely isolated and honor killings common. She organized meet-ups for women to get together and make crafts, which seemed like an innocent gathering to local leaders. But during these meetings she would teach them English as well as lessons about women’s rights and gender equality. Sughar means “skilled, confident woman” in Urdu.

“This is someone who basically defied the local tribal authorities to the point where she’s been kicked out of the village multiple times,” Zuckerman told The Post.

Zuckerman also cited Pussy Riot and Ai Weiwei as examples of the types of movements the disobedience prize wants to recognize – but ideally someone who has yet to attract that level of international attention.

“You don’t change the world by doing what you’re told,” reads a quote from Joi Ito, the director of the Media Lab, on the award’s nomination form.

In addition to the cash, Zuckerman said the Media Lab will commit resources to helping the recipient “figure out how to do this work safely, effectively and powerfully.” The award was conceived by Zuckerman, Ito and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman.

And while the prize could be construed as a response to the current protest culture in the US, the award was conceived in July 2016.

“For quite some time now, I think there’s been good reason to question institutional authority,” Zuckerman said. “And look for situations in which principled disobedience is the right way forward.”