Institutions formally announce HUBweek festival

CAMBRIDGE — The leaders of Harvard University, MIT, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Boston Globe on Friday announced HUBweek, an annual innovation-themed festival to showcase Boston as a center of technology, medicine, academia, and the arts.

The festival, scheduled for Oct. 3 to Oct. 10, will feature lectures, art exhibitions, hackathons, documentary film screenings, and “master classes” taught by renowned speakers at Fenway Park. Organizers are hoping to draw attendees from Boston and around the globe.

They hope the festival will become a signature event in the city, in the mold of South by Southwest in Austin, Art Basel in Miami, or the Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colo.

“We think that the unique complements of art, technology, and science that is a hallmark of this region makes it the ideal setting to inspire and bring together leaders, disrupters, rebels, thinkers, and change agents, locally and from around the world,” said Linda Pizzuti Henry, the Globe’s managing director and a prime mover behind HUBweek.

She spoke at a press conference in Cambridge, at the Ragon Institute, a joint venture of MGH, MIT, and Harvard that researches HIV/AIDS and immunology.

Drew Faust, the president of Harvard, said the festival will tap into the region’s long history of innovation, which includes the first use of anesthesia, the first atomic clock, and the first catcher’s mitt.

“Yes, that’s a Harvard invention,” she said. “I hope catchers everywhere are very grateful.”