MIT Horizon Podcast: Recent Episodes
MIT Horizon
George Westerman of the MIT Sloan School of Management talks about how the most important thing to understand about digital transformation is that it isn’t about technology, and takes us through recent case studies that demonstrate how organizations can maximize digital and leadership capabilities to execute real change.
Bio:
Dr. George WestermanPrincipal Research Scientist, J-WEL Workforce Learning
Senior Lecturer, MIT Sloan School of Management
Dr. George Westerman works at the dynamic intersection of executive leadership and technology strategy. During more than 17 years with MIT Sloan School of Management, he has written three award-winning books, including Leading Digital: Turning Technology Into Business Transformation. As a pioneering researcher on digital transformation, George has published papers in Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, and other top journals. He is now focused on helping employers, educators, and other groups to rethink the process of workforce learning around the world.
George is co-chair of the MIT Sloan CIO Leadership Awards, a member of the Digital Strategy Roundtable for the US Library of Congress, and faculty director for two executive courses at MIT Sloan. He works frequently with senior management teams and industry groups around the world. Prior to earning a Doctorate from Harvard Business School, he gained more than 13 years of experience in product development and technology leadership roles.
Security researcher Keren Elazari talks about why in a zero-trust world it’s helpful to understand cybersecurity not as about putting up barriers, but as maintaining a healthy immune system, how all of us need to become our own chief information security officer—and why that isn’t such a bad thing.
Keren Elazari – Cyber Security Analyst, Author & Researcher
Senior Researcher at Tel Aviv University Interdisciplinary Cyber Research Center, Israel
Visiting Faculty, Singularity University, Santa Clara, California
Founder, BSidesTLV, Israel’s largest hacker and security research community event
Bio:Keren Elazari is an internationally recognized security analyst, researcher, writer and speaker. Since 2000, Keren has worked with leading Israeli security firms, government organizations, big 4 and fortune 500 companies. Keren covers emerging security technologies as an independent strategic analyst and advisor. In 2014, Keren became the first Israeli woman to speak at the prestigious TED Conference. Keren’s talk has been viewed by millions, translated to 30 languages, and chosen for TED’s ‘Most Powerful Ideas’ and ‘Top Ted Talks Of 2014’. In 2020, Keren’s TED talk is still one of TED’s most-watched talks on the topic of security and hacking. Keren holds a CISSP certification, an MA in Security Studies, and is currently a senior researcher with the prestigious Interdisciplinary Cyber Research Center at Tel Aviv University. Keren is also a visiting faculty member on topics of cybersecurity with Singularity University, a private think tank in California, and the founder of Israel’s largest security community event, BSidesTLV, part of the global SecurityBSides movement.
TED 2014: Hackers - The Immune System of The Information Age
Dr. Una-May O’Reilly of MIT CSAIL talks about how we can better understand machine learning by looking at the evolution of intelligence itself, and tells us how that understanding informs her work in applying artificial intelligence techniques to counter cybersecurity threats.
Dr. Una-May O'Reilly is the Leader and Principal Research Scientist of Anyscale Learning For All (ALFA) Group at MIT CSAIL. ALFA focuses on scalable machine learning, evolutionary algorithms, and frameworks for large-scale knowledge mining, prediction and analytics. ALFA conducts research in artificial adversarial intelligence- related to cybersecurity, MOOC data analytics, and data-driven medical modeling. Una-May has expertise in agile data science systems with rapid intelligent data analytics capabilities.
Una-May received the EvoStar Award for Outstanding Achievements in Evolutionary Computation in Europe in 2013. She is recognized by ACM SIG-EVO for her significant contributions having been elected a Fellow of ISGEC; serves as Vice-Chair of ACM SIG-EVO, and has served as chair of the largest international Evolutionary Computation Conference, GECCO. She has served on the GECCO business committee, co-led the 2006 and 2009 Genetic Programming: Theory to Practice Workshops and co-chaired EuroGP, the largest conference devoted to Genetic Programming.
Dr. David Kaplan tells us about his work in engineering meat analogs using an unlikely source: insect cell lines.
David Kaplan is the Stern Family Endowed Professor of Engineering at Tufts University and a Distinguished University Professor. He is Professor and Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering. His research focus is on biopolymer engineering to understand structure-function relationships for biomaterials, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. He is the editor-in-chief of ACS Biomaterials Science and Engineering and he serves on many editorial boards and programs for journals and universities.
Study mentioned in the podcast: Possibilities for Engineered Insect Tissue as a Food Source (PDF)
Dr. David Kaplan tells us about a novel technique using a donut-shaped scaffolding that allows his team to grow brain tissue and directly observe the progress of neurodegenerative disease and brain tumor growth, the impacts of traumatic brain injury, and the effects of potential treatments.
David Kaplan is the Stern Family Endowed Professor of Engineering at Tufts University and a Distinguished University Professor. He is Professor and Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering. His research focus is on biopolymer engineering to understand structure-function relationships for biomaterials, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. He is the editor-in-chief of ACS Biomaterials Science and Engineering and he serves on many editorial boards and programs for journals and universities.
Today, Andy Lowery tells us about practical applications of augmented and mixed reality in industries ranging from manufacturing to medicine; the technology plays an increasingly critical role in the field, and helps companies streamline efficiencies.
Andy Lowery is a co-founder and CEO of RealWear, the leading maker of the award-winning HMT hands-free, head-mounted computers for industry. He has served at the forefront of engineering and operational management in some of the world's most demanding industrial, defense, and manufacturing environments making him an authority on the application of technology in industry
Today, Scott Miller reflects back on design engineering lessons learned from his career with Disney, Hasbro and iRobot, and looks ahead to the future of the industry. We discuss Miller's work bringing robots to life and the challenges associated with successfully scaling manufacturing from concept to retail. Finally, we turn our attention to future innovations in robotics and the impact of those developments to the industry's approach to design and manufacturing.
Scott Miller, the CEO and Co-Founder of Dragon Innovation, worked on a robotic tuna fish, life-size robotic dinosaurs for Disney Imagineering, and robotic baby dolls with Hasbro, before joining iRobot where he was responsible for leading the Roomba team to scale the functional prototype to high-volume production of the first three million units.
Today, we talk to Bruce Cameron, director of the system architecture group at MIT. In this episode, Dr. Cameron talks about working with startups, how early decisions shape the development of big technical systems, and how he’s working with Facebook to use satellite-based phased array antennas to connect underserved countries to the Internet.
Bruce Cameron is the Director of the System Architecture Group at MIT and Faculty Director for MIT’s Architecture and System Engineering online certificate, which has taught over 5300 participants. Dr. Cameron is a co-founder of Technology Strategy Partners, a consultancy created to help firms to restructure product development organizations, build systems engineering functions, and identify new architectures. He has directed research projects for Amazon, BP, Sikorsky, Nokia, Caterpillar, AMGEN, Verizon, and NASA and is currently at work on satellite constellation systems to provide global broadband access.
Today we speak with Gerhard Eschelbeck, network security expert, author of the Laws of Vulnerabilities, and former chief information security officer at Google. He tells us about the ongoing chess match between hackers and defenders, why people remain the most important factors in online security, the significance of two-factor authentication, and the opportunity cloud computing presents to finally design security into the platform.
After 25 years in the security industry, Gerhard Eschelbeck recently retired from Google, where he was Vice President, Security and Privacy Engineering. He led the teams that ensure data and systems security, as well as user privacy. Gerhard has a passion for championing new technologies and is a trusted advisor and board member to several early stage startup companies. He published the original “Laws of Vulnerabilities” and is one of the inventors of the Common Vulnerability Scoring System (the CVSS). The CVSS provides a way to assign a numerical score to a security vulnerability. This helps organizations assess and prioritize their vulnerability management processes. Gerhard also holds numerous patents in the field of managed network security. Prior to joining Google, Gerhard was CTO and Senior Vice President at Sophos and Qualys, and served in senior product and technology roles at companies including Network Associates and McAfee. Gerhard has a Ph.D. in computer science from University Linz, Austria.
Today Mac Cameron of the design engineering firm Zmach speaks with us about why the combination of machine learning—driven design with 3D printing techniques is the future; how additive manufacturing can scale up to compete with traditional production methods; and how the factories of the future will transform learning, jobs, and economies.
Mac Cameron is the founder and CEO of Zmach, a design engineering firm with deep roots in 3D printing and product design. He is a former application engineer at Stratasys, a global leader in 3D printing and additive solutions, and has 3D-printed thousands of parts using FDM and Polyjet technology. He earned a physics degree from the University of Minnesota, where he founded the first 3D printing class and a project-building student group, Tesla Works. Mac currently teaches Introduction to Making and Design for 3D-Printing at MIT.
Zmach website: https://www.zmach.com/
In the first episode of our podcast we talk to Anders Brownworth of cryptocurrency financial services company Circle about the origins of cryptocurrency, how a public blockchain might serve as a trust layer for the internet, what quantum computing means for the future of cryptography, and why governance still matters.
Anders Brownworth taught the first blockchain class at MIT and has worked in the blockchain industry at Circle for the past 5 years. Brownworth is an expert in cold storage technologies and helped create the USDC stablecoin. He is a subject matter expert on blockchain technology for MIT Horizon and has educated lawmakers, regulators and law enforcement on what the technology presents. He regularly guest lectures at MIT and Yale on the topic.
Anders Brownworth videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_160oMzblY8
Anders Brownworth website: https://andersbrownworth.com/