Matt Juul writes for Boston Magazine that a team of MIT students and alumni are competing in the Red Bull Flutag competition, which challenges participants to develop human-piloted gliders. Alumnus Mike Tomovich explains that the MIT team was motivated to compete by a desire to share their “passion for engineering and inspiring the next generation of engineers.”
MIT alumna Ashley Smith speaks with Boston Globe reporter Marisa Dellato about the team she is leading in the upcoming Red Bull Flutag competition. “I’ve been looking for things to do outside work that will help push me as a person, like facing my fear of heights and learning a new skill,” says Smith.
Grace Jun, education director of MIT’s Open Style Lab, speaks to Marisa Dellatto of The Boston Globe about the lab’s work developing clothes designed to empower individuals with unique needs and their fashion show at the MIT Museum. Jun says she was inspired to develop inclusive clothing designs when she saw the potential wearable tech had to help people.
MIT alumna Tish Scolnik speaks with Forbes reporter Susan Adams about her startup, Global Research Innovation and Technology, which develops wheelchairs for rough terrain. Scolnik recalls that she was inspired to develop wheelchairs in an MIT course. “I thought the class would hit my interest and give me an opportunity to understand what engineering was all about.”
In a Boston Globe article about increasing interest in bio-agriculture, Robert Weisman highlights a number of MIT spinoffs, including Grove Labs and Ginkgo Bioworks. Weisman highlights the aquaponics systems Grove Labs is developing “complete with LED lighting, for growing fruit, vegetables, and herbs at home,” and how Ginkgo Bioworks is producing a “roster of ‘bio-products’ that include organic pesticides.”
MIT alumnus Jason Strauss’ startup creates and mails postcards based off your smartphone photos, writes Madeline Bilis for Boston Magazine. “Users text a photo to a phone number, include an address and a message, provide payment information for a $2 processing fee, and voilà, a postcard is printed and shipped,” explains Bilis.
Tech reporter Karleigh Moore speaks with Matt Damon, MIT’s 2016 Commencement speaker, about technology, the film industry and how graduates can help make the world a better place. “Start with…what speaks to you and what feels like something you want to spend your time on,” Damon advised. “It requires so much work and so it helps if you love it.”
MIT alumnus Robert Smith speaks with Boston.com reporter Meagan McGinnes about his perfect attendance record for his class reunions. Smith, who graduated from MIT in 1941, says that the reunions provide the opportunity to “get reacquainted with my classmates, and make new acquaintances that maybe I didn’t know from my class of about 400.”
Boston.com reporter Eric Levenson writes that MIT senior class president Anish Punjabi, “closed his commencement speech at graduation on Friday with a rush of rap riffing on Matt Damon’s film career, sending the actor into hysterics.”
Matt Damon was awarded an honorary MIT Pirate Certificate during MIT’s Commencement, Nicole Hernandez reports for The Boston Globe. The certificate - which is presented to students who complete courses in pistol, archery, sailing and fencing - notes that Damon is “no longer a lily-livered landlubber.”
Chloe Melas reports for CNN on Matt Damon’s address at MIT’s 2016 Commencement exercises. During his speech, Damon called on graduates to tackle some of the world’s most pressing problems. "This world has some problems that we need you to drop everything and solve," Damon noted.
The AP spotlights MIT’s 2016 Commencement exercises, which featured an address from actor and filmmaker Matt Damon. Damon told graduates, “You’ve got to go out and do really interesting things, important things, inventive things, because this world has problems that we need you to drop everything and solve."
MIT alumnus Ilan Goldfajn has been nominated to serve as the next president of Brazil’s central bank, Luciana Magalhaes and Rogerio Jelmayer report for The Wall Street Journal. They note that Goldfajn “has worked as a consultant for international organizations such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations.”
MIT has launched a campaign aimed at advancing the Institute’s work on some of the world’s biggest challenges, reports Laura Krantz for The Boston Globe. Krantz writes that President L. Rafael Reif’s vision for the campaign is centered around the idea that the “university of the 21st century should do more than educate students and advance knowledge — it should solve real problems.”
Tech reporters Drew Bent and Katherine Nazemi speak with MIT President L. Rafael Reif about the MIT Campaign for a Better World. “We want to be as strong as we can, but for a purpose, and the purpose is to do something good for the world,” says Reif. “That’s very uniquely MIT.”