An unusual — and unusually rich — funding opportunity inspired researchers at MIT and several other top-tier research institutions to improvise a comprehensive multi-media proposal on a tight deadline. While the schools’ own IT infrastructures and apps proved disconcertingly incompatible, Dropbox and skillfully edited Skypes facilitated exactly the kind of real-time and asynchronous coordination and “version management” needed to deliver a “knock-their-socks-off” plan fast. They won eight-figure funding.