Hear – And Be Heard

Building an MIT culture of listening and shared understanding.

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Talk

Share your stories with a small group of peers, in person or on a video call.

Understand

Post-conversation, project organizers listen back and work to identify patterns across all conversations.

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Key themes, learnings, and audio medleys are shared back with the community.‍

‍Participants are always in control of whether their voices are shared further—we move at the speed of trust.

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Dr. Andreas Karatsolis

JS Needed

Senior Lecturer and Director, MIT WRAP

"What this whole process has done is it's given me the sense that it's not...about me making decisions based on the data. It should really be about me empowering them to do stuff based on these conversations...to open up doors and help them be heard."

Alma Jam

JS Needed

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Belonging Officer, MIT Media Lab

"I honestly think it's just, it's beautiful... You can see the diversity in the submissions. People choosing to share different aspects of what they felt was meaningful to share with the world."

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Hannah Flitman

JS Needed

Undergraduate Delegate in the 2025 Student Assembly

"Yes, it's a widespread problem, but there's also a lot of really inspiring and really intelligent people out there who really want to create a solution."

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MIT Undergraduate

JS Needed

DisCourse Dinners Participant

"The first thing you typically would do is just look at your phone. And not having that was nice. I was forced to be uncomfortable, and I don't think I give myself a lot of chances to be uncomfortable intentionally."

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Lana Cook

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Associate Director of the MIT Systems Awareness Lab

“Yeah, I really appreciate your willingness to… show up in this space and really be there and present with the participants. So that wasn't just a team of, like, technologists who are coming in with, like, a shiny tool. It was more about, like, oh, how do we really hold this community space in a way that people can share and be heard?”

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Miguel Buitrago

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Undergraduate Association’s Public Affairs Committee

“I think PB would be a way to like, show people, like, hey, here there's money. You have ideas, you like. Any person likes to complain. Yes, let's make it happen. Let's make your ideas happen. You have agency over what can happen.”

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deb roy, mit ccc director

The realtalk@MIT approach is integral to MIT’s identity as a university that sees the most difficult problems not as obstacles, but rather as challenges to overcome. This is who we are as both individuals and as an institution.

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Get Involved

Check out our opportunities, start a collaboration, or email realtalk@mit.edu with questions! We would love to hear from you.

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