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“The world needs your smarts, your skills,” Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala tells MIT’s Class of 2022
On a clear warm day, the MIT graduating class of 2022 gathered in Killian Court for the first in-person commencement exercises in three years, after two years of online ceremonies due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala MCP ’78, PhD ’81, director-general of the World Trade Organization, delivered the Commencement address, stressing the global need […]
Congressional seminar introduces MIT faculty to 30 Washington staffers
More than 30 congressional and executive branch staffers were hosted by MIT’s Security Studies Program (SSP) for a series of panels and a keynote address focused on contemporary national security issues. Organized by the Security Studies Program, the Executive Branch and Congressional Staff Seminar was held from Wednesday, April 20m to Friday, April 22, in […]
Virtual worlds apart
What is virtual reality? On a technical level, it is a headset-enabled system using images and sounds to make the user feel as if they are in another place altogether. But in terms of the content and essence of virtual reality — well, that may depend on where you are. In the U.S., for instance, […]
Bringing hope and transformation to the Democratic Republic of Congo
MIT graduate student Milain Fayulu is on a mission. Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Fayulu is telling, and selling, the story of his nation in the hope of aiding its people and transforming its economy. For decades, the DRC has been hobbled by corruption and bloody civil conflicts. “I grew up with […]
President Guðni Thorlacius Jóhannesson of Iceland visits MIT
Guðni Thorlacius Jóhannesson, the president of Iceland, visited MIT on Friday, engaging in talks with several campus leaders and professors, and touring the Media Lab. Jóhannesson visited the Institute along with a substantial delegation of officials and scholars from Iceland. They met with MIT scholars, who delivered a variety of presentations on research, design, and […]
MIT J-WAFS announces 2022 seed grant recipients
The Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab (J-WAFS) at MIT has awarded eight MIT principal investigators with 2022 J-WAFS seed grants. The grants support innovative MIT research that has the potential to have significant impact on water- and food-related challenges. The only program at MIT that is dedicated to water- and food-related research, […]
Expanding energy access in rural Lesotho
Matt Orosz’s mission for the last 20 years can be explained with a single picture: a satellite image of the world at night, with major cities blazing with light and large swaths of land shrouded in darkness. The image reminds Orosz SM ’03, SM ’06, PhD ’12 of what he’s trying to change. Orosz is […]
When dueling narratives deepen a divide
For more than four decades, the U.S. and Iran have had a relentlessly poor relationship. To be sure, it is hardly a shock that tensions would run high between the countries following the hostage crisis of 1979-1981, when Iran held more than 50 U.S. diplomats in captivity for 444 days. Even so, little progress has […]
A bright light on New York’s Bengali past
When Alaudin Ullah was growing up in East Harlem in the 1970s and 1980s, he loved hip-hop, graffiti art, and the New York Yankees, like many kids did at the time. Still, there was one readily evident difference between Ullah and his peers. Ullah’s parents were from Bangladesh, making them the only South Asian family […]
Springing people from the poverty trap
Chronic poverty in the developing world can seem like an insoluble problem. But a long-term study from Bangladesh co-authored by an MIT economist presents a very different picture: When rural poor people get a one-time capital boost, it helps them accumulate assets, find better occupations, and climb out of poverty. In particular, the study strongly […]