Team Formation and The Destiny System

By Scott Greenwald, PhD

Team formation is a universal problem, and we have tried to make this process easier since the early days of the hack.

Last year, we planned to implement the Destiny System for team formation, which in its design incorporated both (i) mechanisms for avoiding “homophily,” where people join together not because of shared interest, but because of superficial shared attributes like ethnicity, gender, or age, and (ii) giving due importance to “vibing” with team members - identifying affinities or “chemistry” by meeting and chatting.

Unfortunately we bit off more than we could chew, and the system was not fully operational on the day of the event.

This year, going into a second version of the Destiny System design, we aim to involve a group of enthusiastic would-be, could-be, past, or future participants to examine the assumptions behind the system, and make sure that the design will hit the mark in the way that we hope.

If you are interested in creating the future of the Destiny System for team formation, please write destiny@mitrealityhack.com to express interest, and stay tuned for further details.

Sincerely,
Scott