Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray spotlights how a number of MIT spinoffs are working on changing the world’s energy-storage systems. “Behind these companies are key technological advances in chemistry and materials, many of them pioneered at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,” writes Bray. “These breakthroughs have put battery startups at the forefront of the region’s climate-tech sector.”
Prof. Yet-Ming Chiang and his colleagues are developing a new, inexpensive iron-air battery technology that could provide multi-day storage for renewable energy by 2024 through their startup Form Energy, reports Anuradha Varanasi for Popular Science. Chiang explains that “the battery can deliver clean electricity for 100 hours at a price of only $20 kilowatts per hour – a bargain compared to lithium-ion batteries, which cost up to $200/kWh,” writes Varanasi.
Quipu Market, co-founded by Mercedes Bidart ’19, Juan Cristobal Constain ’18 and Gonzalo Ortegoa ’19, was named one of Fast Company’s most innovative companies in Latin America, reports Fast Company reporter Adam Bluestein. Quipu Market is “a web-based and mobile platform that allows individuals and small entrepreneurs in low-income communities,” writes Bluestein, “to conduct trade using virtual tokens, helping microbusinesses gain visibility and build creditworthiness even without access to formal banking.”
TechCrunch reporter Brian Heater spotlights MIT startup Strio.AI, which is aimed at bringing autonomous picking and pruning to strawberry crops.
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.
OPT Industries, an MIT spinoff, has created InstaSwab, a nasal swab “up to 20 times more effective in bacterial sample elution,” reports Brian Heater for TechCrunch. “With the ability to print around the clock, the firm also believes it can play a pivotal role in addressing supply chain concerns — a long-time goal for additive manufacturing,” writes Heater.
WBUR reporters Bruce Gellerman and David Greene spotlight Form Energy, a startup co-founded by MIT scientists with the mission to find a low-cost way to transform the global electric system. The startup “had a eureka moment when they thought about harnessing the rusting process to power batteries,” write Gellerman and Greene.
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.”
David Lucchino ’06 and Prof. Robert Langer have co-founded Frequency Therapeutics, a biotechnology company focused on developing a new approach to restoring hearing from the most common form of hearing loss, reports Jack Kelly for Forbes. “FX-322 is designed to treat the underlying cause of SNHL (sensorineural hearing loss) by regenerating sensory hair cells through activation of progenitor cells already present in the cochlea,” writes Kelly.
Good Morning America reporters Shivani Parmar, Sara Russell and Zohreen Shah spotlight Payal Kadakia ’05 and her new book, “LifePass: Drop Your Limits, Rise to Your Potential.” Parmar, Russell and Shah note that in Kadakia's book, she writes that "your intuition will tell you if the time is right to meet a specific goal and to listen to the inner voice and figure out what goals you want to focus on.”
Amrita Saigal ’10 has created Kudos Diapers, a sustainable disposable diaper that allows a baby’s skin to touch nothing but pure cotton, reports Angela Yang for The Boston Globe. “We need to get to that point in the world where people opt for sustainable products not just because of the environmental aspects,” says Saigal. “But also because they’re like, ‘this is the best-performing product on the market.’”
Quaise Energy, a startup out of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, has developed a millimeter wave drilling system to access layers of rock that reach over 700 degrees Fahrenheit, making geothermal power more accessible, reports Adele Peters for Fast Company. “Wind and solar [power] take up quite a bit of land,” writes Peters. “If geothermal power can be affordable anywhere, it could help fill an important gap in getting to 100% renewable electricity.”
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.
Bloomberg reporter Janet Wu speaks with Katie Rae, CEO of The Engine. Rae explains that The Engine backs “those types of founders that are on a mission to do something that will be truly impactful in a positive way to the planet."
Boston Globe Magazine reporter Courtney Humphries spotlights MIT startup Biobot Analytics, co-founded by Mariana Matus ’18 and Newsha Ghaeli ’17, for using their wastewater and sewage tracking technology to identify Covid -19 in communities across the United States. “Because people shed the virus in their stool before they test positive, Biobot’s data are often a leading indicator of where the infection is heading, arriving ahead of case counts by a few days,” writes Humphries.