Katie Rae, chief executive officer and managing partner of The Engine, speaks with Bloomberg reporter Akshat Rathi about how climate-tech startups are often well served by having scientists and engineers serve as leaders, in particular when surrounded by established business talent. “In the earliest phases of these things, you cannot just divorce the science from the scientist or divorce the engineering from the engineer,” says Rae.
Carlos Casanovas MS ’14 co-founded X1 Wind, a startup that has developed a floating wind turbine prototype, reports Andrew Paul for Popular Science. “Floating wind is set to play a vital role supporting the future energy transition, global decarbonization and ambitious net-zero targets,” says Casanovas.
Chronicle visits the new MIT Museum, highlighting a number of exhibits, including one exploring the research behind the hunt for gravitational waves and another that examines the impacts humans are having on the environment. “We try to be a window, going both ways, between MIT and the rest of the public,” explains Prof. John Durant, director of the MIT Museum. “We’re also trying to get people to have a glimpse of how a world-class research institution actually works.”
Aagya Mathur MBA ’18 co-founded Aavia, a daily ovarian hormone health guide, reports Matt Symonds for Forbes. “We started Aavia to give young people tools to understand how their hormones impact how they feel,” Mathur explains.
Nicole Obi MCP ’95, SM ’95, head of the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts, speaks with Boston Magazine reporter Jonathan Soroff about how Massachusetts can level the playing field for entrepreneurs. “We’re at this point of racial awakening, and a lot of people might not be comfortable with it, but they get it,” says Obi. “Being in this moment makes me really excited to be part of the solution and to create a more equitable future for Massachusetts.”
André Bernardes MBA ’19, Bruno Lucas MBA ’19 and Ludmila Pontremolez co-founded Zippi, a payment platform created to provide “affordable and accessible financial services to the 30 million micro entrepreneurs in Brazil,” reports Aparna Dhinakaran for Forbes.
Yoky Matsuoka MS ’95, PhD ‘98, founded Yohana, a personal concierge service aimed at helping busy families, reports Kana Inagaki for the Financial Times. The service “matches families with human assistants to help with a wide range of tasks – from online shopping, to sending flowers, or organizing holidays,” writes Inagaki.
Boston Globe reporter Ryan Cross spotlights Chroma Medicine, a biotech startup co-founded by MIT researchers that is “developing a new class of gene editing technologies that could control how our genetic code is read without changing the code itself.” Cross explains that Chroma Medicine’s technology could “have broad applications for treating both rare and common diseases.”
Fast Company reporter Amelia Hemphill spotlights the work of Alicia Chong Rodriguez SM ’17, SM ’18, and her startup Bloomer Tech, which is “dedicated to transforming women’s underwear into a healthcare device.” “Our big goal is to generate digital biomarkers,” says Chong Rodriguez. “Digital biomarkers work more like a video, so it will definitely allow a more personalized care from the physician to their patient.”
Aera Therapeutics, founded by Prof. Feng Zhang, is working to “debut a type of protein nanoparticle that it believes can be used to ferry all sorts of genetic medicines around the body,” reports Lisa Jarvis for Bloomberg.
Prof. Feng Zhang founded Aera Therapeutics, a startup working to deliver curative genetic medicine to hard-to-reach parts of the body, reports Ryan Cross for The Boston Globe. “If Aera’s approach works in people, it could broaden the reach of genetic therapies, which currently have limited clinical applications – partly because there aren’t enough methods for getting those medicines to hone in on the right cells,” writes Cross.
Boston Globe reporter Aaron Pressman spotlights several MIT startups that are using AI to generate 3-D environments. Common Sense Machines, an MIT startup, is “trying to enhance the creativity of its app by adding a bit of, well, common sense,” writes Pressman. “Human babies form an understanding of the world by developing abstract models. Common Sense Machines is trying to add similar models to its 3D world builder.”
Xander, an MIT spinoff founded by Alex Westner SM ’98, has developed glasses that generate real-time captions of conversations for the wearer, reports Aaron Pressman for The Boston Globe. “The glasses have their own processor and front-facing microphones and are designed to convert conversational speech into text captions,” writes Pressman.
Boston Globe reporter Scott Kirsner spotlights Boston as a potential leader in climate technology for their “incubator spaces like Greentown Labs in Somerville and The Engine in Cambridge.”
MIT researchers have found that “automation is the primary reason the income gap between more and less educated workers has continued to widen,” reports Ellen McGirt for Fortune. “This single one variable…explains 50 to 70% of the changes or variation between group inequality from 1980 to about 2016,” says Prof. Daron Acemoglu