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Tech Connection - A monthly e-newsletter for MIT Alumni

November 2007

	SPOTLIGHTS
		Cardboard Boat Race Tractor Beam for Cells Alumnus Professor & Baron

In This Issue:

OpenCourseWare Launches High School Initiative?Today

OCW's Lindsey Weeramuni, left, and Rana Banerjee, right, get feedback from potential H4HS users. Photo credit: Keith McLuskey

MIT's revolutionary OpenCourseWare (OCW) today celebrates its goal of publishing materials online for virtually every MIT course. A Web-cast celebration features talks by Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas L. Friedman on empowering technologies and by President Susan Hockfield and others from 2-5:30 p.m. EST. She will also announce a new initiative, Highlights for High School (H4HS), aimed at high school educators and students. H4HS includes resources for AP courses, video demonstrations, special courses developed by MIT students, and introductory MIT courses. MIT OCW averages more than one million visits each month, plus 500,000 more to translations in Chinese, Thai, Spanish, and Portugese. Now with 1,800 courses online, OCW expects to add about 200 new and updated courses each year.

MIT and India Launch New Partnership

President Susan Hockfield cemented growing education and health collaborations during a recent trip to India. MIT and the government of India launched a partnership to create a new Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI), which will offer multidisciplinary degrees and translate research advances into medical innovations. President Hockfield also announced the founding of the International Innovation Initiative designed to connect MIT researchers and the global venture capital community.

RESEARCH & DISCOVERY

• Electronic Nose Printed by Inkjet
  A tiny electronic nose that MIT researchers have engineered with a novel inkjet printing method could detect hazards including carbon monoxide, harmful industrial solvents, and explosives. The process of printing thin sensor films onto a microchip could enable mass production of highly sensitive gas detectors.

• Economist Analyzes Troop Surge in Iraq
  Economics Professor Michael Greenstone has applied statistical techniques, which he uses in measuring the economic impact of climate change, to conduct the first quantitative analysis of the U.S. troop surge in Iraq. His analysis was based on factors ranging from fatality numbers to bond ratings.

• Search Engine Surfs Video
  A new lecture search engine developed at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory allows users to search hundreds of video lectures for key topics. This Web-based technology, created by a team of researchers and students, has been tested on more than 200 MIT lectures.

Quick Take: Image

See how the MIT community defines fashion and style, explore online image galleries, and learn about scientific breakthroughs in imaging that are leading researchers to a better understanding of the body, the Earth, and beyond.

Alumnus Tapped as CNN Hero

Mathias Craig SM '03 is a CNN hero, recognized for his work harnessing the wind to provide sustainable electricity to rural Nicaraguan communities. Find Craig under Community Crusaders in CNN's Heroes initiative, which showcases ordinary people accomplishing extraordinary deeds. A live, global telecast Dec. 6 features the nominees.

MIT Projects Make Time's Best Inventions

Stackable city cars and liquid walls for buildings are among the six MIT inventions named in Time magazine's Best Inventions for 2007. Learn about the MIT inventions through video, articles, and photos.

CAMPUS NEWS

• Energy Club Launches Blog and Alumni Newsletter
  The student-run MIT Energy Club recently launched an energy-focused blog and newsletter, The Joule, aimed at MIT alumni. The newsletter promotes the club's informal mentorship program, the Alumni Association's Externship program, and club events. Find out how to become an alumni member.

• Sustainable Business Conference Offers Alumni Discounts
  Many MIT Industrial Liaison Program (ILP) conferences, such as the Dec. 5-6 Sustainable Business Practices conference, admit alumni at a discount ($900 (versus the $1,750 regular fee). This event focuses on how private industry can reconcile commerce with the major social, economic, and environmental challenges facing the world.

Want to Live Near MIT?

MIT President Emeritus Paul Gray '54, SM '55, ScD '60, is leading a group of MIT, Harvard, and MGH colleagues in the development of a new residential co-operative adjacent to the campus. The University Residential Community at 303 Third Street in Cambridge is offered exclusively to MIT, Harvard, and MGH faculty, staff, and alumni. The co-op units will be available for occupancy in the fall of 2008.

MIT10: Take the New Challenge

Martin Tang SM '72 is offering another $100,000 challenge to undergraduate MIT10 alumni. And this year, donors get to vote on how the money will be spent, if 3,500 of them make a gift by June 30. Check out the Power of Participation challenge site and meet the youngest alumni volunteers on the Who's Who page. Please make your gift today!

Make MIT Your Credit Card of Choice

Take a bit of MIT wherever you go with the MIT Alumni Association American Express? Card or MasterCard® credit card now with WorldPoints® rewards. These cards offer competitive rates and each purchase helps fund Alumni Association services and programs.

MIT Travel: Got Eclipse Glasses?

Viewing the total solar eclipse in Mongolia next August? Or want to say you are? Visit the MIT Alumni Travel Program Web site to request a complimentary pair of eclipse viewing glasses! Only 244 days until viewers in the Gobi Desert don their glasses and watch as the sun disappears completely behind the moon. If you can?t go to Mongolia, maybe you can travel to China or Japan in July 2009?

EVENTS

• Holiday Party at TechShop, Northern California, Dec. 2
  Come to the Holiday Brunch in Menlo Park at TechShop, home to traditional machine tools and advanced computer-controlled fabrication equipment including plasma cutters and 3D printers.

• Leading Life Workshop: Integrate Career and Family, MIT, Dec. 6
  Revitalize your goals, networks, and energy at this workshop designed to encourage personal control of integrating work and family while dealing with everyday realities, sponsored by AMITA and the Sloan School Alumni Career Office.

• 2008 Ignite Clean Energy Competition Kickoff, Boston, Dec. 11
  Network with entrepreneurs, investors, and past winners at the kick off event for the 2008 Ignite Clean Energy Competition, co-sponsored by the Enterprise Forum of Cambridge and the BU Energy Club.

About Tech Connection

Tech Connection, a monthly e-newsletter for alumni and friends of MIT, is available in HTML and text-only formats. Please email mitalum@mit.edu to request the text-only format or to subscribe.

Please email comments to:
Nancy DuVergne Smith
Editorial Director
MIT Alumni Association