Our students speaking at the Day of AI Event
Day of AI at the Museum of Science
Though 10,000 educators (from around 110 countries across the world) participated in MIT RAISE’s Day of AI, NEIA was the only school invited to attend the event in person at the Museum of Science. Last week, we had MIT on-campus training the participating innovators to use the MIT-develop software.
The theme of the day was using generative AI to help combat climate change. The 25 innovators who were chosen to attend heard presentations from top minds like Dava Newman (Director of MIT MEDIA Lab), Tim Ritchie (President of the Museum of Science), Michael Lawerance Evans (Director of Emerging Technologies for the City of Boson), and David Sittinfield (Director of the Center for the Environment).
“There’s just more access to data than ever before…” Rober Parks (Curriculum Developer at MIT) said. “It’s our job, and the next generation’s job, to make sense of that data and make use of it.”
After the keynotes, groups of our students presented their ideas for utilizing generative AI to solve an ecological issue to those top scientists and industry leaders! Our Innovators got to field questions from some of the top minds in the field. Their ideas were impressive, everything from an AI Sustainability Coach called EcoLife to protecting mass forests with TreeSavers.
MIT.nano Forum at NEIA
Last night, in our Lecture Hall, MIT.nano’s Director, Dr. Vladimir Bulovic, and his team presented to our community about “the power of nano-scale to transform our world.”
Last week, he was speaking before the U.N. This week, he was talking to our innovators!
Ben Farrell introduced Dr. Bulovic, calling him “a man who has done so much for so many.” This is a man who quite literally thinks in nano-meters. He understands their subtleties; one example Dr. Bulovic gave: scents are nano-sized molecules. Lemon and oranges have the exact same molecule makeup. The reason they smell different is because of the shape of their particles. There are many practical applications for nanotechnology, and it is a subject that affects everyone whether they realize it or not.
One of the concepts he presented to the students was paper-thin solar cells that could absorb light and power small motors. He held in his hand something that looked like it belonged in science fiction! In a time where everyone seems to be pessimistic about humanity’s future, MIT.nano’s Director emanated pure optimism. “There are many many great things ahead of us,” he said.
After three different break-out groups with different MIT.nano scientists, the students ate pizza in their groups and came up with their ideas to answer this question: How could this technology positively transform the world? With a gallery walk of each team’s poster board, students voted on the most creative and most inspiring ideas. Second place was a tie between mapping the brain in Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality and using coral reef skin grafts to rebuild oceans.
The winning idea was using Virtual Reality as a resource for surgeons to practice surgeries. The MIT team remarked how impressed they were with these ideas and our students.
“I feel even better about our future after watching your students tonight,” Dr. Bulovic said. “You have an incredible environment and incredible dynamics here to come up with new ideas.”