Data

Axios reporter Erin Broadwin spotlights Dimagi, a digital tool for health workers in remote areas that was started by researchers from the MIT Media Lab and the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology program.

Sajith Wickramasekara ‘15 and Ashu Singhal ’11 co-founded Benchling, a software company designed to make it easier to keep track of laboratory data. The company has now acquired Overwatch, a software company for customers working in preclinical biopharma research, reports Alex Knapp for Forbes. “It [the acquisition] fits really nicely in the direction our company is heading,” says Wickramasekara. “It really helps us extend our offering, especially for biopharma where we’re growing a lot.”

Recent MIT research has found a high number of errors in public datasets often used for training models, reports David Talby for Forbes. “An average of 3.3% errors were found in the test sets of 10 of the most widely used computer vision, natural language processing (NLP) and audio datasets,” writes Talby.

Forbes contributor Carolina Milanesi spotlights Dr. Ana Pinheiro Privette ’98, the global lead for the Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative (ASDI), who collaborates with environmental nonprofits, private companies and government agencies to give researchers access to ASDI’s data catalog information. “I’m not sure if I am saving the world, but I’m at least helping people have more resources to do it,” says Pinheiro Privette.

Yuanming Hu SM’19, PhD ’21 and Ye Kuang co-founded startup Taichi Graphics, a cloud-based platform which aims to make 3D content creation easier to develop, share and collaborate on, reports Rita Liao for TechCrunch. “Undergirding the platform is its open-source programming language Taichi, which offers a high-performance computation on spatially sparse data structures like those from 3D visual graphics,” writes Liao.

Zero-knowledge proof (ZKP), a cryptographic method invented by three MIT researchers in 1985, enables authentication of private information without revealing information that could be compromised, reports Victor Shilo for Forbes. “ZKP has the potential to protect privacy in a wide range of cases,” writes Shilo. “By implementing ZKP, businesses and society can evolve to ‘open data 2.0’ where daily transactions are completed in today’s digital economy but without disclosing unnecessary sensitive information.”

Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini writes for The Atlantic about the dangers posed by government agencies adopting the use of facial recognition technology. “No biometric technologies should be adopted by the government to police access to services or benefits,” writes Buolamwini, “certainly not without cautious consideration of the dangers they pose, due diligence in outside testing, and the consent of those exposed to potential abuse, data exploitation, and other harms that affect us all.”

Wise Systems, an AI-based delivery management platform originating from MIT’s Media Lab, has applied machine learning to real-time data to better plan delivery routes and schedules for delivery drivers, reports Susan Galer for Forbes. “The system can more accurately predict service times, taking into account the time it takes to complete a stop, and factoring in the preferences of the retailer, hotel, medical institution, or other type of client,” says Allison Parker of Wise Systems.

Writing for STAT, lecturer Juhan Sonin and his colleagues underscore the importance of individuals owning the rights to their own health data. “Data ownership gives each of us the keys to our health puzzle and insight into how our data is used outside medical appointments to further research, innovation, and better health care for all,” writes Sonin and his co-authors. “It gives us the keys we need to care for ourselves and our loved ones, and to build health in our communities and our country at large.”

Washington Post reporter Steven Zeitchik highlights Prof. Jessika Trancik’s work developing a carbon counter that details the carbon impacts of different cars and MIT startup Form Energy, which is “taking the oxidization process, normally only good for ruining your Saturday garage clean-up, and deploying it to store energy on power grids.” Says Trancik of the importance of allowing people the ability to take stock of their environmental impact: “One of the really important aspects of addressing climate change is bringing everyone into the discussion.”

Nene Anagbogu ’18 and Colin Webb ’18 cofounded Sauce, a startup that provides analytics and dynamic pricing for restaurants, reports Frederick Daso for Forbes. “We’re the perfect combination of restaurant, data and product,” Anagbogu and Webb tell Daso. “Our families started small businesses, and we worked in restaurants, so we know what our customers are going through.”

Prof. Danielle Wood and her team are developing new techniques to use satellite data to monitor and manage environmental problems in remote areas, including an invasive weed growing in parts of Africa, to help inform local decision making, reports Ramin Skibba for Wired. “Our goal is to make it an affordable and operationally feasible thing for them to have this ongoing view, with data from space, data from the air, and data from the water,” says Wood.

Forbes contributor Frederick Daso spotlights Fitnescity, a startup founded by MIT graduates that offers “a streamlined online platform to help consumers select lab kits, get tested, and display their data on a digital dashboard.” CEO and co-founder Laila Zemrani MBA ’13 explains that: “Fitnescity was founded to give people access to the information they need to improve their health and wellness.”

Axios reporter Marisa Fernandez writes that researchers from MIT and Wilson Labs will be analyzing data from seven organ procurement organizations as part of an effort to better understand the American organ procurement system. "Working with this data is a first step towards making better decisions about how to save more lives through organ procurement and transplantation,” says Prof. Marzyeh Ghassemi. “We have an opportunity to use machine learning to understand potential issues and lead improvements in transparency and equity.”

Boston Magazine reporter Tom McGrath spotlights Prof. Tim Berners-Lee’s crusade to rethink the Web and build a new platform that can help users control the digital data they share. Berners-Lee’s platform, Solid, is aimed at ensuring that for the “first time ever, we users—not big tech companies—will be in control of our data, which means that websites and apps will be built to benefit us and not them,” writes McGrath. “That, in turn, could mean revolutions in things that really are consequential, from healthcare and education to finance and the World Wide Web itself.”