MIT ReACT
Solution Presentations
Daniel Abu Dargham and Shahd Jrareh
Robert D Fadel
The MIT ReACT Programs bring MIT’s educational opportunities to talented refugees where they live - places like Lebanon, Jordan, and other locations around the world. The program combines in-person instruction and online learning with practical experience. This approach provides continuity in education for displaced persons, personalized guidance, and paid experiential internships.
The year-long ReACT program offers interdisciplinary curricula and the opportunity to establish connections to professional networks. ReACT students can select a computer and data sciences certificate or MITx MicroMasters program, with additional courses in innovation, entrepreneurship, and soft-skills. The ReACT experience is further blended through matched internships with organizations that mentor students, allowing participants to explore career options through applied learning. Internships are arranged to strengthen connections between students, potential employers, and growing networks.
ReACT works with local and global partners from industry, academia, civil society, NGO, and UN agencies. The structure and curriculum is influenced by local needs, global trends, and the technologies and teaching methods from MIT.
Location: Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria.
Solution Resources
“ReACT is designed to welcome students to a community of learners working on outstanding content. Access to internships and professional networks allows them to experience the hope of education.”
Robert D Fadel
Robert Fadel is the Executive Director of the MIT Refugee Action (ReACT) Hub. Working together with its founder, Prof. Admir Masic, ReACT has been designing and offering a growing number of new blended learning programs to refugees where they live. By cultivating partnerships across multiple sectors ReACT is able to provide displaced students in 10 countries paid internships and new professional pathways as they complete the Computer and Data Science certificate and MITx MicroMasters programs.
Robert was previously Vice-President of One Laptop per Child, where he led OLPC’s ground-breaking project in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. In his roles at OLPC, Robert also worked with the private sector and scores of countries in South America and Africa to bring connected laptops filled with innovative learning content to children. Robert has also served as Assistant Director of MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) and the Assistant Director for Finance at the Media Lab. Robert holds an MBA from Boston College, an MA from Boston University, and a BA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
“I realized that education could be the key to get me out of that poverty and discrimination, everything in that refugee camp, food scarcity, segregation. ”