The Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) at MIT is doing many kinds of amazing work. One of their projects, Fab Labs, appeared in WorldChanging a month ago.

Fab Labs are great: use cheap desktop technology using local materials, to let people build what they need where they need it. And eventually, CBA intends to make them self-reproducing, with human help: a one-room economic revolution.

But CBA is doing far more than that. Their scope is astonishing. A must-read article by CBA's director describes how technology can transform a war zone--by giving people something better to do than fight. It describes how buildings can become networked without a network engineer. It explains CBA's progress toward a general theory of how to program nature: how to ask it questions in its native language, how to build awesomely complex systems.

Any one of these would be impressive. For all--and many more--to come out of one center is astonishing. They are not only developing the next generation of technology. They have the will--and the ability!--to use it for the benefit of humankind.

Chris Phoenix is co-founder and Director of Research of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, and implementer of the Wise-Nano project.