In the Media

Postdoc Freddy Nguyen, former co-director of the MIT Hacking Medicine hackathon, speaks with Forbes contributor Michelle Greenwald about how transitioning to virtual hackathons during the Covid-19 pandemic shed light on how to improve hackathons going forward. "One of the benefits of being virtual was that it allowed participants from around the globe that normally couldn’t afford the airfare or time to go to overseas, to take part,” writes Greenwald. “As a result, there were more participants, more diversity of thought, and a wider range of mentors involved, comporting well with MIT’s belief that great ideas can come from anywhere.”

Prof. Nida Sinnokrot speaks with Artform editor-in-chief David Velasco about his piece KA (Oslo), which is currently on display at the Palestinian Museum. “Hacking technologies and infrastructures of control that give rise to the social, political, environmental instabilities has always been a driving force in my practice,” says Sinnokrot.

TechCrunch reporter Mary Ann Azevedo spotlights Insurify, a startup founded by alumna Snejina Zacharia. “Insurify has built a machine learning-based virtual insurance agent that integrates with more than 100 carriers to digitize — and personalize — the insurance shopping experience,” Azevedo explains.

Fast Company reporter Greg Toppo spotlights alumna Laila Shabir ‘10, founder of Girls Make Games, a series of summer camps, workshops and game jams aimed at bringing together and empowering young women interested in video games. “The camp not only promotes a message of empowerment for girls, but one that encourages them to think differently about games,” writes Toppo. “Shabir urges campers to ‘think big’ about games and get to the essence of the games they love and why they love them.”

Prof. Dava Newman, director of the MIT Media Lab, speaks with Mark Wilson of Fast Company about her vision for the future of the Media Lab. “We’re going to be a diverse and equitable place, we have to have everyone at the table,” says Newman. “We do have these special talents. We can see solutions in envisioning things that are further out. We are built on literal media and data, so we don’t shy away from any technical challenges.”

Writing for INFORMS, Prof. Richard Larson honors and remembers those who served on 9/11 and those in public safety who have continued to serve. Larson notes that with over 50 years of contributions to urban public safety, those in operations research “can build on that strong foundation to create even better data-informed methods and procedures for public safety professionals to do their difficult work – effectively, efficiently, equitably and with minimal risk to both themselves and the citizens whom they serve.”

Prof. Kerry Emanuel discusses how climate change impacts the rapid intensification of storms like Hurricane Ida with Washington Post reporter Sarah Kaplan. “This is exactly the kind of thing we’re going to have to get used to as the planet warms," says Emanuel.

Professor Xuanhe Zhao and his colleagues have developed a new soft robotic prosthetic hand that offers the wearer more tactile control. “You can use it to grab something as thin and fragile as a potato chip, or grasp another hand in a firm-but-safe handshake,” writes Mark Wilson for Fast Company. “By design, this rubbery, air-filled hand is naturally compliant.”

Prof. Jonathan Gruber speaks with Margery Eagan and Jared Bowen on Boston Public Radio about the ethics of offering vaccine booster shots in the U.S. when many nations are struggling with vaccine scarcity. “This is really a moment where, going forward, the world has to figure out a more effective strategy,” said Gruber. “We need to think about how we’re going to set up institutions to deal with these kinds of tradeoffs in the future.” 

New York Times columnist Peter Coy spotlights a new working paper by Prof. Daron Acemoglu examining democracies. “Democracies breed their own support only when they are successful: all of the effects we estimate work through exposure to democracies that are successful in providing economic growth, peace and political stability, and public goods,” Acemoglu and his co-authors write.

Fast Company reporter Adele Peters spotlights LiquiGlide, an MIT startup that has developed a non-toxic lubricant that can be used to ensure each drop of a product slides out of the bottle, lessening waste and making recycling easier. “We all think when we throw a bottle into a recycling bin it will get recycled, but recycling is almost impossible when product is left behind and you need a significant amount of water to clean it,” says Prof. Kripa Varanasi. “So the reality is that some of this packaging actually ends up in a landfill.”

Matthew Shifrin writes for The Boston Globe about his personal experience using the TRANSFORM device created by the Tangible Media Group, an interactive display that fuses technology and design to render 3-D models in real-time. Shifrin, who is blind, notes that TRANSFORM allowed him “to track facial expressions like a sighted person would, and its larger size lets me feel the nuances that I can’t feel on a real face.”

Dezeen reporter Rima Sabina Aouf writes that MIT researchers have created an inflatable prosthetic hand that can be produced for a fraction of the cost of similar prosthetics. “The innovation could one day help some of the 5 million people in the world who have had an upper-limb amputation but can't afford expensive prostheses.”

Fortune reporter Nicole Gull McElroy spotlights how the MIT Sloan School of Management’s Master’s Degree program in Integrated Design and Management (IDM), “ is an effort to blend, in a first-of-its-kind approach, engineering and business degrees under the business school’s umbrella.”

“Real Talk for Change,” a new civic engagement campaign launched by MIT researchers, aims to give voice to regular people across the City of Boston, especially those who feel ignored, reports Meghan E. Irons for The Boston Globe. “We see this as the first step to building what I like to call a new civic infrastructure,’’ says Professor of the practice of community development Ceasar McDowell. “We need new ways to do democracy in this country that are really about honoring the experiences that people have on the ground.”