Regent, a company co-founded by alumni Billy Thalheimer and Michael Klinker, has developed an all-electric sea glider, a low flying plane that operates only over water, reports Alan Ohnsman for Forbes. “We’ve seen airlines and the aviation field pick up a lot,” says Thalheimer. “We're starting to see airlines really think of themselves as transportation operators, thinking about that whole end-to-end customer journey. And seagliders can fit really nicely into that picture.”
Forbes contributor Lucio Ribeiro spotlights Andrew Ng MS '98 and Jaime Teevan SM '01, PhD '07 as two of eight “AI superheroes whose work is transforming technology and challenges our understanding of what’s possible.” Ng is the CEO is Landing AI, and “his efforts in educating the masses about AI through platforms like Coursera, which he co-founded, have democratized AI knowledge, bridging the gap between academia and industry,” writes Ribeiro. Teevan’s “work is focused on making AI more accessible and useful to people in their everyday lives.”
Prof. Yet-Ming Chiang has been named to the TIME 100 Climate list, which highlights the world’s most influential climate leaders in business. “When it comes to cleantech, if it won’t scale, it doesn’t matter,” Chiang says. “This is a team sport—companies large and small, and governments state and federal, need to work together to get these new technologies out there where they can have impact.”
Grace Colón PhD '95, a board member of the MIT Corporation, writes for The Hill about how to transform cities into biotech innovations hubs. “The best path to biotech success will be different for each city,” writes Colón. “But by building on institutional strengths, investing in workers, and knocking down barriers to success, there’s no reason more of them can’t get there.”
Forbes reporter Nancy Wang spotlights Tara Bishop '97 and Eileen Tanghal '97, co-founders of Black Opal Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on health tech. “Tara and Eileen’s story at Black Opal Ventures is a testament to how diversity and innovation can disrupt traditional landscapes,” writes Wang. “Their pioneering strategies and investments herald a new era for healthcare venture capitalism, where diversity and technology converge to create a more inclusive and impactful future.”
Jasmina Aganovic '09 speaks with MSNBC reporter Daniela Pierre-Bravo about her mission to transform the beauty industry by creating more sustainable products through her startup Arcaea. “The way that I’ve always viewed this industry is that it touches almost every single human being on this planet every single day,” says Aganovic. The beauty industry also, “plays such an important emotional role in our day-to-day lives in terms of self-expression and self-care, the ability to escape when things are a little bit tough, those like little small indulgences.”
George Hadjigeorgiou MSc '98 co-founded Zoe, a personalized nutrition program that “aims to improve gut and metabolic health,” reports Julia Kollewe for The Guardian. “Zoe has identified almost 5,000 never-before-seen gut bacteria,” writes Kollewe. “Of those, 100 were strongly associated with health across all 35,000 participants – 50 good and 50 bad. This feeds into the app and members’ personalized scores will be updated over time”
Augmental, an MIT spinoff, has created MouthPad, a tongue-controlled, computer mouse pad designed for people with disabilities, reports Zoya Hasan and Alex York for Forbes. The device is a “hands-free, custom fit mouthpiece for device control,” explains Hasan and York.
Aleena Nadeem '16 founded EduFi, a fintech startup that provides a straightforward process for students in Pakistan to take out loans to help finance their education, reports Kate Park for TechCrunch. “Education offers hope and can change the lives of people. I am one example of millions out there,” says Nadeem.
Lisa Su BS, MS ’91, PhD ’94, the CEO of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), has been named to the Forbes 2023 Future of Work list for her, “technological chops and management savvy [techniques that] helped orchestrate a case-study worthy turnaround at AMD,” reports Jena McGregor for Forbes. The Forbes list, “highlights 50 leaders, executives, thinkers and teams rethinking the world of work at a time when everything – from the job market’s future to AI’s impact to a college degree’s value – feels more uncertain than ever.”
Oprah Daily reporter Michael Clinton spotlights Anh Vu Sawyer MBA ‘20 and her personal, professional and academic journey to becoming a successful social entrepreneur. Vu Sawyer’s company, “which she called Anh55 after her name and birth year, is in many ways a natural extension of her own story: engaging immigrant and refugee communities in producing a line of sustainable clothing for women over 40 that’s both affordable and stylish.”
A number of MIT spinouts and research projects – including the MOXIE instrument that successfully generated oxygen on Mars, a new solar-powered desalination system and MIT spinout SurgiBox – were featured on TIME’s Best Inventions of 2023 list.
Roofscapes Studio, an MIT startup co-founded by Olivier Faber MArch ’23, Tim Cousin MArch ’23 and Eytan Levi MArch/MSRED ’21, transforms rooftops into greenspaces as part of an effort to combat climate change and provide green spaces in cities, reports Kim Willsher for The Guardian. The team is looking to add, “wooden platforms fixed across the sloping panes to create roof gardens, terraces and even walkways,” in Paris to help prevent the city from overheating.
WBUR reporter Daniel Ackerman spotlights Sublime Systems, an MIT startup working to develop “construction-ready, emissions-free cement.” Ackerman explains that: “Sublime’s new approach uses electricity instead of heat. That means the process can be powered with renewable energy rather than fossil fuels. The method also prevents carbon dioxide from escaping the carbon-rich limestone during combustion.”
Arvid Lunnemark '22, Michael Truell '22, Sualeh Asif '22, and Aman Sanger '22 co-founded Anysphere, a startup building an “‘AI-native’” software development environment, called Cursor,” reports Kyle Wiggers for TechCrunch. “In the next several years, our mission is to make programming an order of magnitude faster, more fun and creative,” says Truell. “Our platform enables all developers to build software faster.”