Student wins MacArthur $72G grant

Long Island City resident Benjamin Robison is the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation award after creating a web application that assists people in finding community service opportunities related to news events.
Robison initially came up with the idea for the application called “Fractor: Act on Facts” after he became more involved following September 11. His collaborators on the project were Hugo Berkley and Josephine Dorado.
“I think people genuinely want to help others and seek change, and Fractor gives them a simple tool to do so,” said Robison, who is in the Post baccalaureate Premedical Program at Columbia University. “This empowerment helps create communities centered on giving and hope. Our goal is for the website to become a marketplace for citizens and nonprofits who seek to meet through community needs.”
Through the Digital Media and Learning Competition, Robison received a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Knowledge Networking Award worth $72,000.
Robison, who is a classical violinist, also founded that Musicians Alliance for Peace in 2001. It has sponsored more than 350 charity concerts that have taken place in 30 different countries.
“I am very interested in human creativity and its positive impact on individual and community health,” Robison said. “Creativity through music has positively motivated me for the past 30 years, and now I am looking forward to learning how the human body’s biological response to creativity can heal.”