Fast Company reporter Katherine Schwab spotlights Duality, an MIT startup that is using homomorphic encryption to analyze encrypted data without decrypting it. Schwab explains that the “company’s technology could provide an actual solution to the data privacy problem by allowing companies to keep their data fully encrypted and still find patterns in it.”
Writing for Smithsonian, Alice George highlights Margaret Hamilton’s work leading the team at the MIT Instrumentation Lab that developed the software for the Apollo 11 mission. “She was a pioneer when it came to development of software engineering,” says Teasel Muir-Harmony, a curator at the National Air and Space Museum, and “a pioneer as a woman in the workplace contributing to this type of program, taking on this type of role.”
The Financial Times has named Prof. Tim Berners-Lee its "Boldness in Business" Person of the Year for his work aimed at providing people with more control over how their personal data is used online, reports John Thornhill. “We know how to fire rockets into the sky. We should be able to build constructive social networks,” says Lee.
TechCrunch reporter Brian Heater writes that researchers at CSAIL and Harvard have developed a soft robotic gripper that can both handle delicate objects and lift items up to 100 times its own weight. “The gripper itself is made of an origami-inspired skeletal structure, covered in either fabric or a deflated balloon,” explains Heater.
In an article marking the 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web, Vox reporter Aja Romano highlights how in 1961 two MIT graduate students developed the concept for ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet. Romano writes that Leonard Kleinrock “developed his thesis around the idea that computers could talk to each other if they could carve up their information into tiny, easily transferrable packets.”
TechCrunch reporter Devin Coldewey writes about the Ethics and Governance in AI Initiative, a research program developed by the Media Lab and Harvard. Coldewey notes that the initiative just announced funding for a number of projects “aimed at using technology to keep people informed, or informing people about technology.”
New York Times reporter Natasha Singer spotlights how MIT and Georgetown Law are offering a joint course in privacy law and technology as part of multi-university effort focused on technology and the public good. “Everybody who is researching, working at these big companies believes that what they’re doing is good,” says third year student Rachel Wei. “But we have to understand the other side of the issue.”
In an article for Wired celebrating 10 pioneering women in STEM, Emily Dreyfuss highlights the work of Margaret Hamilton, who led a team at the MIT Instrumentation Lab that developed the onboard flight software on the Apollo computers. Dreyfuss notes that without Hamilton, “the modern computing era would not be what it is today.”
WGBH’s Kirk Carapezza reports from the launch of the new MIT Stephen Schwarzman College of Computing on how the new college is indicative of a shift in higher education towards more technical fields. “They can choose the major which is their passion and be confident they’re going to gain the skills that are necessary to advance that passion,” explains Provost Martin Schmidt.
Anne Mostue reports for Bloomberg Baystate Business on the launch event for the new MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing. Eric Schmidt, former executive chairman of Alphabet, noted that the new college will be able to achieve something that has not been possible before, namely to “aggressively diffuse this new technology into fields which need it, but can’t get it on their own.”
VentureBeat reporter Kyle Wiggers highlights a panel discussion focusing on AI and entrepreneurship held during an event for the new MIT Schwarzman College of Computing. “We know that entrepreneurs drive the economy,” said Eric Schmidt, former executive chairman of Alphabet. “What do you need to have [AI] companies? You need entrepreneurs. And let me tell you: we need more entrepreneurs.”
Bloomberg News reporter Amanda Gordon writes about the three-day event for the new MIT Schwarzman College of Computing. “MIT is going to be the anchor of what we will know in society as public interest technology,” said Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation, during a panel discussion on considering the social impacts of AI.
Diane Greene SM ’78, a life member of the MIT Corporation, speaks with Becky Quick of CNBC about the future of AI. Greene explains that companies can now combine data with computational power, so that an “algorithm can learn from the data. Once you start doing that you start getting insights you’ve never gotten before that can leapfrog what you’re able to do.”
Profs. Regina Barzilay and Dina Katabi discuss how AI could transform the field of medicine in a special episode of CNBC’s Squawk Box, broadcast live from MIT’s celebration for the new MIT Schwarzman College of Computing. Barzilay explains that her goal is “to teach machines to do stuff that humans cannot do, for instance predict who is going to get cancer within two years.”
President Rafael Reif and Stephen Schwarzman discuss the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing on Squawk Box. “We are integrating those computing and AI tools into all the disciplines we have, so every student here, no matter what he or she majors in, will be very comfortable using these new tools to practice their profession,” explains Reif.