MIT is offering a $250,000 award for civil disobedience

MIT has created an award for people who break rules.

The University's Media Lab has announced that it will award $250,000 to a group or individual for civil disobedience.

"You don't change the world by doing what you're told,"according to Joi Ito, the director of MIT's Media Lab.


"This idea came after a realization that there’s a widespread frustration from people trying to figure out how can we effectively harness responsible, ethical disobedience aimed at challenging our norms, rules, or laws to benefit society,"  the department website reads.

"You don't get a Nobel Prize for doing what you're told, you get it for questioning authority," Ito said. He mentioned the values embodied by people like the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Galileo, the people who created the Environmental Protection Agency mirror website and activists in Bangladesh fighting for LGBTQ rights.