4.13.22-Build.nan-closing-remarks

SPEAKER: So Vladimir Bulovic is going to give us our closing remarks, and that's the only thing that's standing between us and our networking time, so no pressure.

VLADIMIR BULOVIC: And my remarks are very, very brief. Thank you so much for joining us today. We experimented with something entirely new. We try to bring the very small scale to something that's huge. Indeed, if we are going to be practical, making real technologies that matter, we need to understand how did ancient people did it back at the time of Roman concrete, as we learned from the very beginning, as well as how spiders do it so we can learn from the way nature has done it for centuries, eons, before we have started gaining insights.

The answer always-- from our perspective over at MIT.nano-- the answer always leads you to the nanoscale. Everything is built of atoms. They are put together certain ways. We just happen to have perfected some of them, like concrete and such. We know how to cast glass.

But all of these could be made even more effective, even more powerful, even more transformative for the world we truly need to build, given that by-- what is it-- by 2050, we need to double all of the people living in the cities. We need to build the environment that can truly sustain that in a sustainable way, without burning up the planet. And solutions do need to come from our understanding how to use the right materials in a scalable form. Thank you so much for joining us today. Appreciate it.