Poverty

The Media Lab’s Human Dynamics group team beat some 3,000 other submissions from around the world to win three of six categories in the 2017 Fragile Families Challenge.

Media Lab team tops Fragile Families Challenge

Human Dynamics research group earns high marks in new scientific collaboration to improve the lives of disadvantaged American children.

October 4, 2017

Mark Brennan (left) and Prithvi Sundar are graduate students working with MIT’s Comprehensive Initiative on Technology Evaluation to better understand and evaluate the food aid supply chain.

Researchers identify opportunities to improve quality, reduce cost of global food assistance delivery

Research from MIT's CITE program leverages a procurement process to identify opportunities for improving food aid supply chains.

September 13, 2017

Danielle Wood spoke at the Media Lab’s space event, Beyond the Cradle, in March. She will join the faculty full-time in January 2018.

Danielle Wood joins Media Lab faculty

MIT alumna is establishing a new research group aimed at harnessing space engineering to improve life on Earth.

August 28, 2017

D-Lab Scale-Ups Fellow Chebet Lesan holds a bag of her company's innovative charcoal briquettes, which are made from recycled waste. Lesan is the founder and CEO of BrightGreen Renewable Energy, which provides affordable, clean, safe, and eco-friendly charcoal briquettes for low-income households in Kenya.

Bringing poverty-alleviating solutions to market in India, Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda

2017 D-Lab Scale-Ups are tackling energy access, small farm irrigation, portable medical diagnostics, online education, and support for local artisans.

August 16, 2017

A new study shows that without significant reductions in carbon emissions, deadly heat waves could begin within as little as a few decades to strike regions of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. This map shows the maximum wet-bulb temperatures (which combine temperature and humidity) that have been reached in this region since 1979.

Deadly heat waves could hit South Asia this century

Without action, climate change could devastate a region home to one-fifth of humanity, study finds.

August 2, 2017

By comparing 1.6 million pairs of photos taken seven years apart, researchers have now used a new computer vision system to quantify the physical improvement or deterioration of neighborhoods in five American cities, in an attempt to identify factors that predict urban change. Pictured are two street views, with the old photograph on the left and the new photograph on the right.

Why do some neighborhoods improve?

Density of highly educated residents, rather than income or housing costs, predicts revitalization.

July 6, 2017

Evaluating approaches to agricultural development

Involving local farmers in tackling a problem can provide long-lasting benefits.

July 6, 2017

“One of the most frequent questions that we get at J-PAL is a version of, ‘So a program worked in one place. Is it likely to work in my context?’” says Mary Ann Bates, the deputy executive director of J-PAL North America.

How J-PAL thinks globally and acts locally

Can an antipoverty program work in different settings? A new report presents a user’s guide to a tough issue.

June 28, 2017

Left to right: Thomas Ermacora, futurist, urbanist and humanitarian; Hala Fadel MBA ’01, founder and chair of the MIT Enterprise Forum of the Pan-Arab region; Admir Masic, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at MIT; Lara Stein, MIT ReACT development director; and Riccardo Sabatini, scientist and entrepreneur.

MIT to spur global education hub for displaced populations and refugees

The Refugee ACTion Hub (ReACT) will create tailored learning experiences and spark collaboration.

May 16, 2017

In Haiti, Makilene Velnis stands with her family in front of the home she bought with money she earned working at the Apparent Project, a nonprofit artisans’ guild. The documentary "Poverty, Inc.," co-produced by MIT grad student Mark Weber, explores how the foreign aid and charity industry may be doing more harm than good.

Q&A: When is giving to charity the wrong thing to do?

MBA student and film producer Mark Weber describes how the foreign aid and charity industries may be holding developing countries down.

May 15, 2017

An ear for political language

Doctoral student Tom O’Grady maps the rise of anti-welfare rhetoric in decades of speeches in the UK Parliament.

May 8, 2017

Engineers at MIT have found a way to cut the cost of solar-powered drip systems by half, by optimizing the drippers. Furthermore, these new drippers can halve the pumping power required to irrigate, lowering energy bills for farmers. Pictured is an example of a current drip system.

Watering the world

New design cuts costs, energy needs for drip irrigation, bringing the systems within reach for more farmers.

April 19, 2017

“A hundred cities around the world today drive the economic, intellectual, and cultural energy of the world economy,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (right) told an audience of nearly 300 in the Wong Auditorium on April 14. In a conversation moderated by Institute Professor John Deutch (left), Emanuel discussed several new initiatives in Chicago and offered his views on issues ranging from early c...

Rahm Emanuel: The city is where the action is

In talk at MIT, Chicago mayor argues that major cities can lead on policy progress.

April 18, 2017

MIT alumni and faculty have a long history of public policy service. Kathleen Hicks PhD ’10 (left) is director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; Samuel Rodarte Jr. ’13 is a legislative aide for U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano.

Shaping public policy in the nation's capital

Alumni continue an enduring tradition of MIT service.

April 12, 2017

$“We have a fractured society,” says MIT professor Peter Temin. “The middle class is vanishing.” His new book, “The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy,” is being published this month by MIT Press.$

America’s two-track economy

Economist’s new book examines decline of the nation’s middle class.

March 13, 2017

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