4.557/MAS.552  Innovation Hubs, Integrating Technology + Design [QuitoLab]

City Science Lunch Talk 10

Geoff Mamlet, Founder, Boston Impact Hub
Date: Wednesday, May 7th
Time: 12:00- 1:30pm
Location: 50 Milk St. - 17th Floor - Boston

Geoff has been Managing Director of Cambridge Innovation Center (www.cictr.com) since 2000. Prior to that, he was CTO and co-founder of E-Travel, Inc., the leading provider of Internet corporate travel management systems. E-Travel is now a division of Amadeus. Geoff began his career as a software engineer with a variety of startups in the networking and telecommunications industry.
We will have lunch and talk to Geoff about Impact Hub Worldwide, the beginnings, challenges, objectives, case studies, etc. The talk will be for approximately one hour, and 30 minutes for Q+A

Announced on 05 May 2014  5:02  p.m. by Ramiro Almeida

City Science Lunch Talk 9

Speaker: Kent Larson, Co-director of the City Science Initiative at the MIT Media Lab and the director of Changing Places group
Date: Wednesday, April 16th
Time: 12:00- 1:30pm
Location: E15-383 / 20 Ames Street

Kent Larson is the co-director of the City Science Initiative at the MIT Media Lab and the director of Changing Places group. Since 1998, he has also directed the MIT House_n research consortium in the School of Architecture and Planning. His current research is focused on four related areas: responsive urban housing, new urban vehicles, ubiquitous technologies, and living lab experiments. Larson practiced architecture for 15 years in New York City, with work published in Architectural Record, Progressive Architecture, Global Architecture, The New York Times, A+U, and Architectural Digest. His book,Louis I. Kahn: Unbuilt Masterworks was selected as one of the Ten Best Books in Architecture, 2000 by The New York Times Review of Books. Related work was selected by Time magazine as a "Best Design of the Year" project.

Changing Places:
How new strategies for architectural design, mobility systems, and networked intelligence can make possible dynamic, evolving places that respond to the complexities of life.

The Changing Places group proposes that fundamentally new strategies must be found for creating the places where people live/work, and the mobility systems that connect them, in order to meet the profound challenges of the future. We are investigating how new models for urban architecture and personal vehicles can be more responsive to the unique needs and values of individuals though the application of disentangled systems and smart customization. We are developing technology to understand and respond to human activity, environmental conditions, and market dynamics. We are interested in finding optimal combinations of automated systems, just-in-time information for personal control, and interfaces to persuade people to adopt sustainable behaviors.

Announced on 14 April 2014  12:29  p.m. by Ramiro Almeida

City Science Lunch Talk 8

Sandy Pentland, author, Social Physics
Date: Wednesday, April 9th
Time: 12:00- 1:30pm
Location: E15-383 / 20 Ames Street

Alex `Sandy’ Pentland directs MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory and the MIT Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program, co-leads the World Economic Forum Big Data and Personal Data initiatives, and is a founding member of the Advisory Boards for Nissan, Motorola Mobility, Telefonica, and a variety of start-up firms. He has previously helped create and direct MIT’s Media Laboratory, the Media Lab Asia laboratories at the Indian Institutes of Technology, and Strong Hospital’s Center for Future Health.

In 2012 Forbes named Sandy one of the 'seven most powerful data scientists in the world’, along with Google founders and the CTO of the United States, and in 2013 he won the McKinsey Award from Harvard Business Review. He is among the most-cited computational scientists in the world, and a pioneer in computational social science, organizational engineering, wearable computing (Google Glass), image understanding, and modern biometrics. His research has been featured in Nature, Science, and Harvard Business Review, as well as being the focus of TV features on BBC World, Discover and Science channels. His most recent book is `Social Physics: How Good Ideas Spread—The Lessons from a New Science,' published by The Penguin Press.

Over the years Sandy has advised more than 50 PhD students. Almost half are now tenured faculty at leading institutions, with another one-quarter leading industry research groups and a final quarter founders of their own companies.

Sandy's research group and entrepreneurship program have spun off more than 30 companies to date, three of which are publicly listed and several that serve millions of poor in Africa and South Asia. Recent spin-offs have been featured in publications such as the Economist and the New York Times, as well as winning a variety of prizes from international development organizations.

Interesting experiences include winning the DARPA 40th Anniversary of the Internet Grand Challenge, dining with British Royalty and the President of India, staging fashion shows in Paris, Tokyo, and New York, and developing a method for counting beavers from space.

We are looking forward to your project presentations on Wednesday, please let us know if you have any questions.

Have a great week!

Announced on 07 April 2014  3:14  p.m. by Ramiro Almeida

City Science Lunch Talk 7

Gordon Jones, Managing Director, Harvard i-lab
Date: Wednesday, April 2nd
Time: 12:00- 1:30pm
Location: Harvard i-lab, Batten Hall / 125 Western Ave.

Gordon Jones is the Managing Director of the Harvard Innovation Lab. Hired as the inaugural Director in 2011, Gordon has 20 years of experience in senior roles with startups, mid-sized, and Fortune 500 companies across multiple industries. Gordon also brings a deep passion for education at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and a proven commitment to mentoring the next generation of entrepreneurial oriented leaders. He has previously served as an Adjunct Lecturer at Bentley University, teaching marketing to MBA and undergraduate students. He graduated from Brown University (BA) and earned an MBA from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. Organizations with whom he has worked include: American Biophysics (bought by Woodstream), Universal Pest Solutions (licensing deal with ServiceMaster/Terminix), Gillette, Procter & Gamble, General Mills, PepsiCo, and The Orme School.
We hope all of you had good travels back to Cambridge and we look forward to our next class. Next Wednesday we will meet at the Harvard i-lab at 12:00.
After the talk with Gordon Jones we will have class/working session at the i-lab until 4:30.
Have a great week!

Announced on 31 March 2014  12:28  a.m. by Ramiro Almeida

City Science Lunch Talk 6

Nicco Mele, author, The End of Big
Date: Wednesday, March 19th
Time: 12:00- 1:30pm
Location: E15-383 / 20 Ames Street

NICCO MELE - entrepreneur, angel investor and consultant to Fortune 1000 companies - is one of America's leading forecasters of business, politics, and culture in our fast-moving digital age.
Nicco's first book, The End of Big: How The Internet Makes David The New Goliath, was published by St. Martin's Press on April 23, 2013. In it, he explores the consequences of living in a socially-connected society, drawing upon his years of experience as an innovator in politics and technology.
Born to Foreign Service parents, Nicco spent his early years in Asia and Africa before graduating from the College of William and Mary in Virginia with a bachelor's degree in government. He then worked for several high-profile advocacy organizations where he pioneered the use of social media as a galvanizing force for fundraising. As webmaster for Governor Howard Dean's 2004 presidential bid, Nicco and the campaign team popularized the use of technology and social media that revolutionized political fundraising and reshaped American politics. Subsequently, he co-founded EchoDitto, a leading internet strategy and consulting firm, whose non-profit and corporate clients have included Barack Obama's successful Senate campaign, the Clinton Global Initiative, Sierra Club, UN World Food Programme, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, AARP, and Medco. Nicco is also on the faculty at the Harvard Kennedy School where he teaches graduate-level classes on the internet and politics.
Since his early days as one of Esquire Magazine's "Best and Brightest" in America, Nicco has been a sought-after innovator, media commentator, and speaker. He serves on a number of private and non-profit boards, including the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. Nicco is also co-founder of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival.
www.nicco.org

For the second part of class, Ryan will lead an organizing session for our localdata exercise in Quito. Alicia will follow up with details.

Finally at 3:45 we will have a presentation by Sandra Richter:

Sandra is a marketing scientist focusing on Persuasive Technology in the urban landscape, particularly sustainable transportation. Sandra graduated from the University of the Arts Berlin from the Strategic Communication program and majored in Psychology and Innovation.
SEAT-E provides free access to renewable energy to charge smart phones and small electronic devices in cities, bringing cities one step closer to fulfilling a key UN goal: sustainable energy access for all. The seats are off-grid and entirely autonomous. Fully integrated solar panels store energy in Li-ion batteries and can be accessed through weatherproof USB ports. The batteries also power lighting and sensing. Each seat has an ID and forms part of the SEAT-E network. The seats gather location-based data on air quality; cities typically measure air quality only at one or two locations, but levels vary significantly depending on traffic and other factors. As a result, policymakers and citizens are often uninformed. Public engagement with this sensor data has the potential to create a platform for real dialogue between cities and their citizens about the air we share.
www.sandra-y-richter.com

See you soon in Quito!

Announced on 16 March 2014  11:49  p.m. by Ramiro Almeida