Boston's Power of Ideas: The MIT Influence

According to Boston Magazine, Boston’s “new power class” consists of visionaries, idealists, and thinkers who are transforming the way the world lives, works, and learns. So it should come as no surprise that more than 20 percent of the magazine’s 2014 Power of Ideas list, which came out in the May 2014 issue, is comprised of MIT alumni (nine) and faculty (seven).

Read about the nine MIT alumni (and one honorary member of the Alumni Association) who made the list then share your thoughts on the Alumni Association’s Facebook or Twitter page. Let us know if there are any MIT alumni we missed or if any other alums deserve mention.

David Altshuler ’86 (“Googling the Genome”) Director, Broad Institute Program in Medical and Population Genetics

“Altshuler believes we’re living in another Age of Discovery—but instead of surveying new continents, scientists the world over are mapping the genes of individual human beings.”

John Harthorne MBA ’07 (“Accelerating Talent”) Founder & CEO, MassChallenge, Inc.

“Harthorne understands the impact one good idea can have on another: He picked the brains of more than 2,000 Bostonians before launching MassChallenge in 2008, and today the program is booming.”

Ernest Moniz HM ’11 (“Determining the Future of American Energy”) Professor Emeritus, MIT Department of Physics

“He’s been dubbed ‘the man in the middle,’ having to balance the Obama administration’s increasingly strong stance on climate change with the needs of a strident energy industry. ”

Nicholas Negroponte ’66, MArch ’66 (“The Web’s Next 25 years”) Professor, MIT Media Lab

“Nicholas Negroponte is looking forward: The MIT Media Lab and One Laptop Per Child founder has plans to use stationary satellites to expand Web access to “the last billion” people without the Internet.”

Timothy Prestero SM ’01, SM ’01, SM ’01 (“NeoNurture Infant Incubator”), CEO, Design That Matters

“(Prestero) repurposed discarded car parts to build an infant incubator for people in the developing world. His award-winning invention has treated more than 1,000 babies in Vietnam, Myanmar, and Ghana.”

Marc Raibert PhD ’77 (“Department of Acquisitions”) President, Boston Dynamics

“(Raibert’s) Waltham-based robotics firm is the juggernaut behind terrifying beast machines that, in YouTube videos, can be seen running at 30 miles per hour over mixed terrain like headless mechanical wolves.”

Tim Rowe MBA ’05 (“Reclaiming the Original Innovation District”) CEO, Cambridge Innovation Center

“Rowe foresees the new branch of the Cambridge Innovation Center reinvigorating downtown Boston, just as the original CIC helped launch the new Kendall Square.”

Deb Roy SM ’95, PhD ’99 (“Department of Acquisitions”) Chief Media Scientist, Twitter

“Roy drew on his research in child-language acquisition to teach computers how to ‘read’ social-media chatter about television, making it possible to measure a mass audience reaction in real time.”

Brian A Whitman PhD ’05 and Tristan Jehan SM ’01, PhD ’05 (“Department of Acquisitions”) Founders, Echo Next

“(Echo Next) was quietly powering Spotify, Rdio, Rhapsody, and other Internet music companies using its massive processing power to analyze 35 million songs.”

Check out Boston Magazine’s article and read about the additional MITers who made the list, including edX President Anant Agarwal, Professor Tim Berners-Lee, Visiting Professor Larry Lessig, Research Scientist Kent Larson, Media Lab Director Joi Ito, and Professor Sherry Turkle.