Jamie Earl White BS ’10, MS ’12 speaks with Fast Company reporter Clint Rainey about his startup, Unit of Work, which provides free consulting to workers trying to unionize their workplaces. “Our goal is to get resources to workers in underserved workplaces, but not make them a part of our own union,” says White. “We act more like consultants who help them get where they want to be with unionizing their workplace.”
Researchers from MIT, Harvard University, and the Georgia Institute of Technology have examined the impact of tech startups working in close proximity, reports Cheryl Winokur Munk for The Wall Street Journal. The researchers found that “'knowledge spillovers' were greatest between dissimilar startups that worked within 20 meters (22 yards) of each other,” writes Munk. “Working in such close range allowed for socialization, which in turn led to idea sharing about the types of technology the startups were using as part of their overall tech infrastructure.”
Alumni Carter Huffman ’14 and Mike Pappas ’14 co-founded Modulate, an artificial intelligence technology that helps differentiate between friendly banter and inappropriate outbursts in video game voice chats, reports Scott Kirsner for The Boston Globe. “Modulate highlights for a game’s human moderators the most severe violations of the game’s guidelines and allows them to decide on the consequences after they examine the situation,” writes Kirsner. “They may send the player a warning, mute them temporarily, or ban them from the game.”
Prof. Mircea Dincă and Grama Sorin co-founded Transaera, a company dedicated to designing air conditioners that require significantly less energy, reports Scott Kirsner for The Boston Globe. “Grama and Dincă cofounded Transaera in 2018 and supported their early work with about $2 million in state and federal grants, from agencies that included the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center,” writes Kirsner.
Gradiant, an MIT startup founded by Anurag Bajpayee PhD ’12, S.M. ‘08 and Prakash Govindan PhD ’12, has developed an energy efficient system that purifies water by mimicking natural rainfall cycles, reports Aaron Pressman for The Boston Globe. “Nature has the advantage of having all the surface area of the oceans available freely and a free source of energy from the sun,” Govindan said. “We have to engineer this into a compact, highly efficient, and energy-efficient industrial device.”
Quaise Energy co-founder Carlos Araque BS ’01 MS ’02 speaks with Guy Raz, host of NPR’s How I Built This, about his time on the MIT Electric Vehicle Team, starting his company and the future of geothermal energy. “We would build these cars together, literally from scratch,“ said Araque about the EVT. "Very hands on, a lot of engineering went into that. And it [offered] very early experience with building things that work -- not only work, but work reliantly and consistently.”
Mark Lee MS ’94 spoke with Forbes reporter Karen Walker about the success of Splashtop, a company he co-founded that is developing cloud-based software that allows secure and remote access and support.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), an MIT spinout, has signed an agreement with the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) to “support the fastest path to clean commercial fusion energy,” reports Ed Browne for Newsweek. “CFS says its agreement with UKAEA could involve exchanges of knowledge and collaboration on things like fuel, modeling, manufacturing and maintenance,” writes Browne.
Butlr, spinout founded by researchers from the MIT Media Lab, is developing sensors that utilize body heat to estimate office occupancy, reports Kyle Wiggers for TechCrunch. The new technology “uses thermal sensing AI to provide data on space occupancy and historical activity,” writes Wiggers.
Alumni Mahmoud Ghulman and Aziz Alghunaim co-founded Nash, a platform that allows businesses to select specific delivery providers based on price and availability, reports Kyle Wiggers for TechCrunch. “By removing the technical, logistical, and operational overhead associated with offering a reliable delivery experience, Nash helped hundreds of businesses access new customers and revenue streams,” says Ghulman.
Ifueko Igbinedion PhD ’22, Marlyse Reeves PhD ’22 and Wharton alumni Isoken Igbinedion, and Simone Kendle founded Parfait, a company that uses technology to more efficiently design and create wigs, reports Ron Miller for TechCrunch. “The four women have built a solution that lets women simply choose a wig and answer a series of questions to come up with the final design,” explains Miller. “They have mixed this with machine learning to help with sizing and proper tinting, while bringing in human stylists to make the final decisions when needed.”
Professor William Oliver, graduate students Bharath Kannan and Tim Menke, Principal Research Scientist Simon Gustavsson, Shereen Shermak MBA ’97, Youngkyu Sung PhD ’22, and former research scientist Jonas Bylander founded Atlantic Quantum, a company that aims to improve the basic hardware behind quantum computing, reports Ariyana Griffin for Forbes. “The focus on Atlantic Quantum is building hardware that improves the ‘coherence’ of quantum computation, which reduces the errors that are the major speed bump for these machines,” writes Griffin.
CAMP4, a startup founded by Prof. Richard Young, is developing a new class of RNA-based therapies to treat genetic diseases, reports Ryan Cross for The Boston Globe. The “startup’s experimental approach will allow it to dial up the output of genes to treat genetic diseases, with an initial focus on a severe form of epilepsy and life-threatening live diseases,” writes Cross.
Fast Company reporter Nate Berg spotlights the work of Liminal, a non-profit research group developed by students from MIT and Harvard that is focused on sustainable development in small towns. “Liminal brought 18 architecture and urbanism students from MIT to Abruzzo for a three-week immersion in the region,” writes Berg, “to learn about local priorities and develop design visions for the future of its small towns.”
Research affiliate Jason Prapas founded Fyto, a company dedicated to developing hardware and software to automate and scale the production of aquatic plants, reports Christine Hall for TechCrunch. Prapas says that “Fyto’s technology taps into a farm’s waste streams as inputs to enable farmers to increase productivity and improve nutrient management while reducing production costs, water usage and greenhouse gas emissions, in some operations by over 50%.”