Events

The Media Lab Talks with Visionaries

by Amy Marcott on February 23, 2012

in Events,Learning,Media

Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig

Click the image to view the video on the Media Lab site.

The new series Media Lab Conversations will host visionaries who work at the intersection of technology, art, and enterprise. Earlier this week, the program featured Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Lessig, who is also the director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University.

Lessig spoke on “One Way Forward: The Outsider’s Guide to Fixing a Republic.” Lessig’s current academic work addresses the question of institutional corruption in a number of contexts. Click the image to view the video, which was posted the day after the event.

Next up in the series is Wadah Khanfar, president of the Sharq Forum, an international think tank focused on political and economic development in the Arab world, and former director general of the Al Jazeera network. His talk is entitled “One Year After Mubarak: The Past and Future of the ‘Arab Spring.’” Khanfar’s talk will be followed by a dialogue with Joi Ito, director of the MIT Media Lab; Ethan Zuckerman, director of MIT’s Center for Civic Media; and Mohamed Nanabhay, head of online at Al Jazeera English, as well as questions and answers with the audience.

Find this and other upcoming Media Lab events.

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Contest: Help Create an MIT-Inspired Valentine!

by Jay London on February 6, 2012

in Alumni Life,Campus Culture,Design,Events,Modern Geekhood

The MIT Alumni Association is creating a MIT Valentine’s Day postcard and we need your help. We’ve designed the card, and we want you to provide the MIT-inspired copy. (Geeks can be quixotic, too.)

Once the submissions are collected, the Alumni Association, in conjunction with the Academy of Valentine’s Day Arts & Sciences, will review and debate then announce a winner on Monday, February 13.

The winning words will be added to our valentine, which will be permanently located in the ePostcards section of the Alumni Association site. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, the card will be available to send to—and warm the heart of—that special Engineer (or non-Engineer) in your life.

This contest is open to all members of the MIT community. The rules are simple: Keep it clean, keep it 200 characters or less, and keep it MIT-inspired.

Original poetry, geeky pickup lines, or even a simple word or two are fair game. Submissions will be judged on creativity, originality, humor, and their connection to MIT. Being romantic never hurts either!

Here’s how it works:

  1. Submit your MIT-inspired copy in the comments section of this post or on the Alumni Association Facebook page.
  2. The deadline to submit is Sunday, February 12.
  3. The Academy of Valentine’s Day Arts & Sciences, in conjunction with Alumni Association cupids, will review the submissions and determine a winner, who will be credited on the ePostcard page.
  4. Visit the Association Facebook page on Monday afternoon, February 13, to view the winner and send out the postcard.

Get romantic, get creative, and get to work!

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DIY-IAP: Watch a Robotics Tournament…in Space

by Jay London on January 23, 2012

in Campus Culture,Design,Events,IAP,In the News,Modern Geekhood,Research,Science,Space

If you’re feeling spaced out this morning, you’re not alone. Teams of high school students are at MIT today for the finale of the third annual Zero Robotics SPHERES Challenge, a worldwide competition where students program satellites to complete tasks onboard the International Space Station (ISS).

The MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics has joined with NASA, Aurora Flight Sciences, TopCoder, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in sponsoring the competition. The finale takes place today at MIT from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Watch it live on NASA TV or the Zero Robotics site.

In the competition, NASA will upload software developed by the high school students onto SPHERES (Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites), basketball-sized satellites created at MIT, aboard the ISS. Students wrote algorithms for the SPHERES satellites, giving them the opportunity the opportunity to act as simulated ground controllers for space research.

The tournament began in September with over 2,000 students from 147 teams creating algorithms and devising codes. The top 27 teams will have their code sent to the space station where, during today’s competition, astronauts in microgravity will command the satellites to execute the teams’ flight programs. The team with the highest software performance over several rounds of the competition wins the challenge.

SPHERES satellites were developed at MIT in 1999 and first used aboard the ISS in 2006. In addition to the competition, the satellites are used inside the space station to conduct formation flight maneuvers for spacecraft guidance navigation, control, and docking, and they can test a wide range of hardware and software at an affordable cost.

David W. Miller, professor of aeronautics and astronautics, and research scientist Alvar Saenz-Otero PhD ’05 serve as principal investigator and co-investigator, respectively, of the challenge.

For more information on SPHERES, watch a 2009 video where the MIT SPHERES Team held a test session with astronauts Michael Barratt and Timothy Kopra aboard the International Space Station set to the score from “An der schönen blauen Donau” (On The Beautiful Blue Danube) by Johann Strauss II.

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Traveling the World in Search of Basketball (DIY-IAP: MIT Basketball Doubleheader)

by Jay London on January 20, 2012

in Alumni Life,Athletics,Campus Culture,Events,IAP

Billy Johnson, '09, '10

In 2010, the most popular jobs for new MIT graduates were in consulting and finance, and the most popular locations included Boston and New York City. Nowhere to be found on that list: professional basketball player…in Costa Rica…or Iceland.

But that road was traveled by Willard “Billy” Johnson ’09, ’10, assistant coach for the Engineers Men’s Basketball Team, who play WPI tomorrow in a Men’s/Women’s home doubleheader that begins at 1 p.m. (the women take on Smith). AT MIT, he earned a B.S. in management science with a finance concentration in 2009, and a B.S. in political science with an international studies concentration and minors in economics and theater in 2010. He then spent a year-plus odyssey that included professional stops in Reykjavik and San Ramon. He’s chronicled these adventures on his blog, Ballin’ on a Budget.

“When I graduated, I wanted to keep playing basketball but wasn’t sure if I could play professionally,” he said. “But I learned at MIT to never let unknown variables hold you back. If you have a goal, attack it with tenacity.”

Johnson was tri-captain of the celebrated 2009 team that–despite dressing only nine players–won the school’s first NEWMAC Tournament Championship and first NCAA Division III Tournament victory, and received national media attention from ESPN. Johnson returned as a fifth-year senior in 2010, leading the team to the NEWMAC Conference Championship. He left MIT as the team’s all-time win leader, and finished in the top 10 in three-point percentage, free-throw percentage, and blocked shots.

After graduation, Johnson spent a few months in India performing market research and forecasting, and working in a Leprosy/HIV clinic. He briefly assisted MIT basketball coach Larry Anderson before travelling to Costa Rica and helping lead ARBA-San Ramon to the playoff semifinals. While in Costa Rica, Johnson also worked at Beyond Study Abroad, a non-profit that connects NCAA athletes with children in impoverished parts of the world.

Following the season, he moved to Reykjavik, joining former teammate Jimmy Bartolotta on Íþróttafélag Reykjavíkur (Reykjavik Athletic). He played only six games before sustaining a gruesome finger injury (photos available on his blog). The cut-short season allowed Johnson to rejoin Anderson’s staff shortly before this season.

“The people in Costa Rica and Iceland were amazing but I missed MIT basketball,” he said. “It was tough being away. You learn so much at MIT that isn’t in the classroom, and I realized that when I was gone.”

The undefeated Engineers (15-0) are off to their best start in Engineers history and ranked number three nationally in Division III. The women’s team is 7-5 and poised for NEWMAC tournament run. Johnson says any fans attending Saturday’s doubleheader will not be disappointed.

“There’s a saying in MIT Athletics: Life begins at the end of your comfort zone,” he said. “When you go to these games, you see the MIT spirit of pushing yourself to the limit, then pushing yourself more, making yourself uncomfortable by working so hard. It’s the embodiment of MIT.”

For more information on Saturday’s doubleheader, visit the MIT Engineers athletics site.

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DIY-IAP: MIT Community Service Day, January 27

by Jay London on January 18, 2012

in Alumni Life,Events,Public Service,Student Life

Benjamin Francis '12 prepares dinner at St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church.

The holiday season is behind us and, for many, so is its spirit of giving. But the commodity of community service is always needed, and MIT junior Benjamin Francis is helping address this need.

Since October, Francis has lead a group of students in founding a soup kitchen that helps the homeless and hungry in the Cambridge area. MIT Hillel, Professor Jeffrey Ravel, and Central Square’s St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church support the project. The kitchen operates every Wednesday evening, when no other community meals are served in the area.

From MIT News:

There are approximately 40 volunteers on the project, consisting of students from MIT Hillel, three MIT fraternities (Zeta Psi, Sigma Nu, and Phi Kappa Sigma), and others who joined after hearing about the project by word of mouth. At any given time on a Wednesday evening, 10 to 15 volunteers operate the soup kitchen. They cook, serve food, clean, and talk with many of the people who come in for dinner.

That group’s work personifies MIT’s spirit of giving, which will be on full display during MIT’s IAP Community Service Day on January 27. Open to all members of the MIT Community, volunteers can spend the day working with three local organizations: the Greater Boston Food Bank, where volunteers will inspect, sort, and repack grocery products to be distributed to hunger-relief agencies; the Salvation Army, where volunteers will help paint the group’s Harbor Light Center; and People Making a Difference, MIT, which was founded by Lori Tsuruda ’89 and promotes volunteerism in one-time projects that meet local needs. Volunteers will assemble Legos into DNA models that will be used by schools in the Boston area and across the country. (Register by January 23th and contact serviceday@mit.edu for more information.)

MIT-related volunteer efforts beyond the IAP period can be found at the Institute’s Public Service Center, which has a broad range of public service that suit the interests and abilities of the larger MIT community.

Volunteer opportunities for non-Cambridge-based alums are also available. The IDEAS Global Challenge is an annual invention competition that relies on volunteers to help organize events, work with teams, and reach out to new audiences. Many alumni can also volunteer through their Alumni Association connections, which includes serving as an Institute Career Assistance Network (ICAN) advisor and getting involved in MIT clubs in your region.

Editor’s note: In honor of MIT’s Independent Activities Period (IAP) in January, Slice is focusing on activities you can do yourself and on the experiences of students serving this month as externs with alumni in their workplaces. Stay tuned!

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MIT: The Source of Innovation in…Sports

by Jay London on December 15, 2011

in Alumni Life,Athletics,Campus Culture,Events,In the News,Media

Guest blogger: Larry Lataif, Conference co-lead, Sloan ‘12

From the transistor radio to the Human Genome Project, MIT can lay claim to a number of innovations. But until recently, the Institute has rarely been associated with advancement in professional sports.

The MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference not only solidified the relationship between MIT and athletics, it changed the way research and statistics are applied in professional and college sports. Organized by students from the Sloan School of Management, the conference is open to anyone interested in sports, with a special reduced rate for MIT alumni.

Daryl Morey '00, general manager of the NBA's Houston Rockets

Now in its sixth year, the conference will be held March 2-3 at Boston’s Hynes Convention Center. The event is co-chaired by Daryl Morey ’00, general manager of the NBA’s Houston Rockets, and Jessica Gelman, vice president for Kraft Sports Group. This year’s conference will also include Jeff Ma ’94. A co-founder and vice president for Synergy Sports and a consultant for the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers and the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers, Ma is also a former member of the famed MIT Blackjack Team.

The 2012 event features a varied group of the sports world’s leading decision makers, including Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA’s defending champion Dallas Mavericks; Gary Bettman, commissioner of the National Hockey League; Scott Boras, Major League Baseball super-agent; Bill James, founder of the sports analytics movement; and Michael Wilbon and Bill Simmons, two of ESPN’s most prominent personalities.

2012 sessions include “The Art & Analytics of Negotiation,” “Fanalytics,” and “The Commish: The Role of the Modern Commissioner in Sports,” and topics on all major sports.

Past MIT-related highlights have included a golf-putting statistic co-created by MIT Professor Stephen Graves that measures a player’s putting performance and has since been adopted by the PGA Tour, and a baseball analytics section hosted by Chicago Cubs Scouting Director Joe Bohringer ’93.

Find out more about this year’s conference, view videos from past conferences, or secure the reduced rate for MIT alumni.

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Faculty Forum Online: Homeland Security, Dec. 5

by Amy Marcott on November 28, 2011

in Events,Learning

MIT Faculty Forum Online logo

Update: View a video of the presentation.

National security in an age of massive movements of people across borders is a universal concern that involves complex issues. While borders have different characteristics and challenges, there are areas of commonality. Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of crossings are not problematic, but the ones that are raise concerns.

Tune in and hear some of the lessons learned by Chappell Lawson, MIT associate professor of political science, from his recent two-year assignment as executive director and senior advisor to the commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Learn more in this MIT News Office article—3 Questions: Chappell Lawson on border security.

The Faculty Forum Online series continues on Monday, Dec. 5, from Noon to 12:30 p.m. ET. MIT Associate Professor of Political Science Chappell Lawson will offer his thoughts on homeland security and take questions from the worldwide MIT alumni community via video chat.

Register for this free event to receive the link for live viewing. After the event, come back here and continue the conversation in the comments.

About Chappell Lawson

Chappell Lawson

Associate Prof. of Political Science Chappell Lawson

Chappell Lawson is an associate professor of political science at MIT, director of the MIT International Science and Technology Initiatives (MISTI), and secretary of the faculty. His major research interests are Mexican politics, democratization, political communication, and voting.

From September 2009 through February 2011, he was on leave from MIT as a political appointee in the Obama Administration, serving as executive director and senior advisor to the commissioner at U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Professor Lawson was a national fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University (2002-2003), and a visiting research fellow at the Center for U.S.-Mexico Studies at the University of California, San Diego (1998-99). He earned his PhD from Stanford University in 1999. Before joining the MIT faculty, he served as a director of Inter-American Affairs on the National Security Council.

Books

Consolidating Mexico’s Democracy: The 2006 Presidential Campaign in Comparative Perspective (Johns Hopkins University Press, Forthcoming)

Building the Fourth Estate: Democratization and Media Opening in Mexico (University of California Press, 2002).

Mexico’s Pivotal Democratic Election (Stanford University Press, 2003, coedited with Jorge Domínguez).

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A Mega Chain Reaction? That’s F.A.T.

by Jay London on November 23, 2011

in Arts,Campus Culture,Design,Events,Modern Geekhood

If you’re not among the 130 million people planning to shop on “Black Friday,” but still want to take part in organized chaos, you should check out the Friday After Thanksgiving (F.A.T.) Chain Reaction Event at MIT.

Presented by the MIT Museum and held at the Rockwell Cage Gymnasium, F.A.T. is like watching an enormous domino demonstration. Over 30 teams create individual mini-chain reaction machines using a variety of materials. Those machines are connected together in the event’s finale, forming a mega-chain reaction with a surprise ending thanks to event M.C. and legendary kinetic sculptor Arthur Ganson.

F.A.T. begins at 1 p.m. is expected to draw close to 1,500 spectators. Participants have ranged from MIT researchers to Girl Scout Troops from throughout the U.S.

The chain reactions at F.A.T. vary, with some contraptions as simple as books falling against one another and some as complicated as the board game Mouse Trap, and the end result resembling a version of the Rube Goldberg machine in the music video “This Too Shall Pass” by OK Go.

In the finale, a tube that passes a single golf ball from machine to machine will connect the reactions. Each reaction ranges from 30 seconds to three minutes, uses no chemicals, no plug-in electricity, and no more than a cup of water.

Now in its 14th year, the theme for F.A.T. 2011 is “Sonnets” (sonnets, of course, have 14 lines). Ganson is encouraging reactions to be built in the sonnet spirit, such as a 14-step reaction or a group-sonnet that describes the machine.

Spectators can talk to teams, create their own contraptions. General admission tickets are available online and for discount  at $12.50 until Wednesday, November 23 at noon. Regular admissions (which includes free same-day access to the MIT Museum) will be available at the door for $15 for adults and $5 for children. Children under five years old are free.

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The Answer…the Daily Double

by Jay London on November 2, 2011

in Events,In the News,Learning,Media,Modern Geekhood,Student Life

The Final Jeopardy Answer: Finding the spot for this memorial caused its creator to say, “Americans will march across that skyline.” (Question below)

Teams from MIT Sloan (right) and Harvard Business School (left) take on the Jeopardy! supercomputer (center)

It’s the age-old question. Who’s smarter, a group of grad students or a supercomputer powered by 2,880 Power processor cores? The two were pitted against each other Monday, when groups from MIT’s Sloan School of Management and Harvard Business School took on IBM Watson, the Jeopardy! supercomputer, in an exhibition game of the popular TV quiz show.

The answer was simple. The supercomputer responded correctly to every question it buzzed in on, en route to “winning” $53,601. Harvard, which featured two students who had previously appeared on Jeopardy!, placed second with $42,399. MIT, which finished with a higher score than Harvard in the practice round earlier in the day, struggled in the first round, came up short in Final Jeopardy, and finished third with $100.

“We did some mild Googling to prepare,” MIT Sloan’s Gautham Iyer MBA ’12 said. “We also took a look at the Jeopardy! board game. But it was tough to focus since two of us just had an exam this morning.”

R.J. Andrews MBA '13, Gautham Iyer MBA '12 and Ari Oxman MBA '13

The game featured categories like “Presidential Rhyme Time” (sample questions: Bush’s tushes and Obama’s llamas) and “Countries that End in ‘E.’” MIT Sloan ended the first round at -$200 but began Double Jeopardy with consecutive answers in “Scrambled State Capitals” and “World Series MVP Teams” to increase their score to $4,500.

Thanks to a true Daily Double that netted $11,200, Harvard took a brief lead during Double Jeopardy. Watson quickly took over, running the table in “11 Letter Words” and taking a lead it would never relinquish.

The exhibition capped a daylong symposium, “The Race Against the Machine: The Future of Technology and Employment,” co-hosted by the two schools and IBM.

David Ferrucci, IBM’s Principal Investigator for Watson Technologies, spoke about the evolution of Watson and its struggles during infancy (see photo below). The symposium also focused on the commercialization of Watson-like technology and the fundamental transformation of the global economy in the future.

IBM Watson in its earlier stage, circa 2009. The correct responses are in green; Watson's initial responses are in red. (Click to enhance)

“It’s ultimately not about Jeopardy!,” Ferrucci said. “It’s about avoiding biases and looking at all possibilities. It’s not always about the final decision; it’s about finding the correct information that’s needed.”

Watson, named after IBM found Thomas J. Watson, is an IBM-created computer system that can understand meaning and context of human language and has the capability to instantly sift through 200 million pages of data. Harvard and MIT are in good company: the machine soundly defeated Jeopardy! champs Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter in a televised contest earlier this year.

“Clicking the buzzer was a lot tougher than I thought,” Iyer said. “Every time we had the right answer, it felt like we were too late to buzz in.”

The question: What is Mount Rushmore?

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Faculty Forum Online: The Real Solution is Growth, Oct. 26

by Amy Marcott on October 24, 2011

in Economics,Events,Learning

MIT Faculty Forum Online logoUpdate: View a video of the presentation.

In the U.S., recent headlines have focused on such issues as the debt ceiling, the recent credit rating downgrade, and unemployment. But consider this: increasing the average growth rate in the U.S. by one percentage point over the next 20 years would not only result in much higher incomes and more jobs but would also obviate the need for drastic spending cuts today to reign in the government deficit.

With a 2% increase per year, average incomes, and to a first approximation government tax revenues, would be 49% higher in 20 years than they are today; with a 3% increase per year, they would be 81% higher.

The underlying message? We should not take our eye off the really important ball: economic growth and the innovation process that underpins it.

The Faculty Forum Online series continues on Wednesday, Oct. 26, from Noon to 12:30 p.m. EDT. MIT Economics Professor Daron Acemoglu will offer his thoughts on the economy and growth and take questions from the worldwide MIT alumni community via video chat.

Register for this free event to receive the link for live viewing. After the event, come back here and continue the conversation about economic growth in the comments.

MIT economics Professor Daron Acemoglu

MIT Economics Professor Daron Acemoglu.

About Daron Acemoglu

Daron Acemoglu is the Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics at MIT. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of York and a master’s and doctorate from the London School of Economics. He began teaching at MIT in 1993, becoming a full professor in 2000. In addition to the books listed below, he’s written numerous journal articles. His fields of interest include political economy, economic development, economic growth, economic theory, technology, income and wage inequality, human capital and training, labor economics, and network economics.

Books

Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty (with James A. Robinson), Crown publishers (Random House), forthcoming March 2012.

Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (with James Robinson), Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Introduction to Modern Economic Growth, Princeton University Press, 2009.

Learn more about Daron Acemoglu and read his blog post about economic growth for the Harvard Business Review.

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