[Em]Powering the Future: Transforming Ideas into Reality
Education Partner
The year 2025 is unfolding with significant challenges. In the face of uncertainty, a clear vision of risks and opportunities is more important than ever. MIT offers a space for thoughtful engagement, networking, and collaboration where leaders from industry, academia, and the public sector come together to better understand the forces shaping our world—and to prepare for what lies ahead.
This November, join distinguished researchers and practitioners as they examine key developments in manufacturing and energy, supply chain resilience, life sciences, climate science and policy, entrepreneurship, space technology, advanced materials, cybersecurity, data analytics, and—unsurprisingly—artificial intelligence (AI), a topic central to research and application across MIT.
This is our flagship event of the year, featuring a full agenda of keynote talks, in-depth technical tracks, startup presentations, and moderated discussions with industry leaders—designed to foster learning, connection, and action.
On Day 2, attendees can choose from six concurrent technology tracks, followed by tours of the MIT campus.
Day 2 Concurrent Technology Tracks: Track 1 | Entrepreneurship in Action: From Discovery to Disruption Track 2 | Power Hungry World - The Future of Sustainable Energy Track 3 | Innovation and Impact in the New Space Era Track 4 | Intelligence Unleashed: Scaling and Securing Enterprises of the Future Track 5 | Frontiers in Advanced Materials: From Molecular Design to Functional Systems Track 6 | Engineering Life Sciences: Interdisciplinary Pathways from Concept to Impact
Sign-ups for Post-Conference Campus tours will be available at the registration desk the morning of Day 2.
* Current MIT Community: limited in-person seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Registration must be completed with an mit.edu email address.
** STEX Community: please email ocrevents@mit.edu for complimentary access.
***Cancellation Policy: You may cancel your registration for a full refund through November 11. Refunds will be issued to the original form of payment. From November 12 to November 18, partial refunds will be available, minus a service fee ($300 for in-person registrations and $100 for virtual). No refunds will be issued after November 18. To cancel, please email ocrevents@mit.edu.
Dr. Srinivasan is a distinguished scientist who received her PhD in Microbiology from The Ohio State University in 2004, where she contributed to the discovery of the 22nd amino acid, Pyrrolysine (2002). She first came to MIT as an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow in Prof. Tom Rajbhandary’s lab, where her research focused on understanding protein synthesis mechanisms in Archaea.
Dr. Srinivasan subsequently moved into the business development and technology licensing space, serving in MIT’s Technology Licensing Office, where she helped commercialize technologies in medical devices and alternative energies. She then moved to UMass Medical School’s Office of Technology Management in 2009 and to Emory University in Atlanta in 2014 as the Director of Public and Private Partnerships for the Woodruff Health Sciences Center. In 2019, Dr. Srinivasan joined Emory’s Office of Corporate Relations as Executive Director, and in 2021, she led the Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations.
John Hart is Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. He is also the Director of the MIT Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity and the Center for Advanced Production Technologies. John’s. John’s research group focuses on the science and technology of production, including work on additive manufacturing, materials processing, automation, and computational methods. John has been recognized by awards from the United States NSF, ONR, AFOSR, DARPA, SME, and ASME, along with two R&D 100 awards. He has also received the MIT Ruth and Joel Spira Award for Distinguished Teaching in Mechanical Engineering and the MIT Keenan Award for Innovation in Undergraduate Education, for his leadership in undergraduate manufacturing education using new pedagogical models and digital resources. John is a co-founder of Desktop Metal and VulcanForms, and a Board Member of Carpenter Technology Corporation.
Manager, Business Development and Marketing, MIT Professional Education
Ariadna Rodenstein is a Program Manager at MIT Startup Exchange. She joined MIT Corporate Relations as an Events Leader in September 2019 and is responsible for designing and executing startup events, including content development, coaching and hosting, and logistics. Ms. Rodenstein works closely with the Industrial Liaison Program (ILP) in promoting collaboration and partnerships between MIT-connected startups and industry, as well as with other areas around the MIT innovation ecosystem and beyond.
Prior to working for MIT Corporate Relations, she worked for over a decade at Credit Suisse Group in New York and London, in a few different roles in event management and as Director of Client Strategy. Ms. Rodenstein has combined her experience in the private sector with work at non-profits as a Consultant and Development Director at New York Immigration Coalition, Immigrant Defense Project, and Americas Society/Council of the Americas. She also served as an Officer on the Board of Directors of the Riverside Clay Tennis Association in New York for several years. Additionally, she earned her B.A. in Political Science and Communications from New York University, with coursework at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Mexico City, and her M.A. in Sociology from the City University of New York.
Co-Founder & CTO, Diffraqtion
CEO, DiploAI
Co-Founder & CEO, Fluent Metal
Peter Schmitt, PhD, is the Co-Founder and CEO of Fluent Metal, a startup developing an innovative metal deposition technology designed to expand the possibilities of manufacturing with metals. Prior to Fluent Metal, Peter was the first employee and Chief Designer at Desktop Metal, a leading company in metal 3D printing. He holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and brings over 15 years of experience in additive manufacturing, encompassing prototyping, product development, and scaling technologies for diverse applications. Peter also holds several patents in the field.
Co-Founder & CEO, BlueShift
Deep Patel is the Co-Founder & CEO at BlueShift, a venture-backed mining processor building electrochemical systems to unlock resilient, cost-effective, scalable critical mineral supply chains and carbon removal. They are integrating technology from Harvard, Michigan, & ARPA-E and recently raised a $2.1M pre-seed round. Deep left his nuclear engineering PhD program at the University of Michigan to join Amazon as a Senior Technical Product Manager. He went on to lead Amazon Lab126’s large-scale DAC business before founding BlueShift.
Founder, The Surpluss
Rana is a part time PhD researcher at the IfM (Industrial Resilience Research Group). Her work focuses on the intersection of industrial metabolism, resource sovereignty and digitization for the diffusion industrial symbiosis in increasingly complex geopolitical and economic environments. She also serves as an industrial fellow MENA lead at the Global Supply Chain Observatory at the Department of Engineering.
With over 13 years of experience spanning marine conservation, litigation, and chemicals manufacturing, Rana founded the regions’ leading climate-technology start up, The Surpluss in 2021. Now, a Future 100 company (Ministry of Economy, UAE) and B Corp certified, The Surpluss connects businesses to trade surplus industrial assets and materials, operating across three continents, and recognized as a 2x Top Innovator by the World Economic Forum for global challenges spanning industry 4.0 and circular economy. Rana holds a U.S patent for developing new systems for circular economy standardization and resource sharing.
Rana has received an Mst in Sustainability Leadership from the Cambridge Institute of Sustainability Leadership (CISL) with distinction, where she developed an interest in creating diagnostic frameworks for more resilient, localized supply chains in resource-intensive sectors. She has also completed an LLM in International Law from Middlesex University, an M.Phil in International Peace Studies specializing in the legality of transboundary resource management, and a B.A in Philosophy, Political Science, Economics & Sociology (PPES) from Trinity College Dublin. Rana is also an accredited GRI Sustainability Professional, Sustainability Excellence Associate, and Biomimicry Practitioner certified.
She is a Climatebase Fellow, an official member of the Forbes Business Council, and selected for the 2024 Harvard Climate Entrepreneurs Circle. As a trusted thought leader on cross-cutting topics of supply chain sustainability, climate mitigation and the circular economy in the Arabian Gulf, her Op-Eds have been featured by BBC, CNN, The National and Harvard Business Review, amongst others. In 2024, she has been featured in Vanity Fair’s Global Goals list for championing UN SDG 12, responsible consumption and production, and served as a reviewer for the Seventh Edition of the Global Environmental Outlook (GEO-7), UNEP’s independent expert-led assessment of the environment and flagship report.
Co-Founder & CEO/CTO, American Boronite Corporation
Dr. Pavel Bystricky is a leading global expert in advanced materials with in-depth knowledge of nanotube-based nanotechnology, composites, metals, and smart materials. He is founder and CEO/CTO of American Boronite Corporation, where he has raised over $14mn in contracts to fund development of nanotube-based materials and applications. Together with a talented team of PhDs, engineers, and technicians, Dr. Bystricky has developed state-of-the-art automated production systems for nanotube fabrics and continuous nanotube fibers. The Boronite team belongs to a select group of researchers and companies working on the synthesis and characterization of carbon and boron nitride nanotubes and their structural, mechanical, and electrical properties.
Over his career, Dr. Bystricky founded the startup Mat-IQ, directed and worked in advanced materials R&D at multiple corporations, and researched advanced materials in academia. Prior to Boronite, he held the position of Director of Advanced Materials at KaZaK Composites where he technically managed over $10mn in development contracts for advanced composite manufacturing. He was also a research scientist at École des Mines and Électricité de France (EDF), where he developed a general quantitative model of stress corrosion cracking in nuclear power plant cooling systems, and at the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility, where he designed a water purification system for a neutrino detector. Dr. Bystricky earned a Ph.D. in Materials Science from MIT and holds 9 composites and nanomaterials-related patents. He has presented his work at numerous conferences around the world, including at the Twenty-Fourth International Conference on the Science and Applications of Nanotubes and Low-Dimensional Materials, which took place at MIT in June 2024.
Co-Founder & CEO, Zifino
Sanjay Manandhar is a Cambridge, MA-based tech entrepreneur who brought the Internet to Nepal in 1994, where he remains actively involved in entrepreneurship and promotion of the arts.
Currently, Sanjay is CEO and co-founder of Zifino (zifino.com), a cybersecurity company that uses AI to assess, prioritize, and offer remediation guidance for cybersecurity vulnerabilities in an increasingly diffused and expanding attack surface. Prior to Zifino, Sanjay co-founded and was CEO of Wicket (wicketsoft.com), a computer vision company for opt-in-based facial biometrics for access control, payments, and ticketing.
Sanjay was founder and CEO of Aerva (aerva.com), a enterprise software platform that managed content on 10,000 digital displays in 6 countries, for advertising, employee communications or entertainment, from Times Square billboards to thousands of Anheuser-Busch 7-foot digital cooler doors, displays in 33+ US Naval bases, universities, convention centers, airports and transit hubs. Sanjay founded, grew, and sold Aerva in 2015 without raising any outside capital.
From 1996 to 1999, Sanjay picked technology stocks in London for a fund with GBP 12 billion under management. Sanjay’s early career as a software engineer was at Sun Microsystems and Olivetti in Silicon Valley, NYNEX and Siemens in Cambridge, MA, USA.
Sanjay has a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT, and Master’s from MIT Media Lab, and an MBA from INSEAD. He holds four patents in computer vision and one patent in a content management system.
Sanjay serves on the Advancement Committee of UWC in New Mexico and is also an avid mountain biker and a trekker in the Himalayas and around the world.
Director, MIT Lincoln Laboratory
Dr. Melissa G. Choi is the director of MIT Lincoln Laboratory, a multidisciplinary federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) run by MIT for the Department of Defense. As director, she is responsible for the Laboratory's strategic direction and overall technical and administrative operations.
The Laboratory focuses on advanced technology development and system prototyping for national security needs. Laboratory-sponsored programs include work for the military services and other government agencies, such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Prior to her appointment as director in 2024, Choi served as an assistant director of the Laboratory from 2019 to 2024, with oversight of five of the Laboratory’s nine technical divisions as well as its Air Force–sponsored programs. Choi served for six years on the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, with a term as vice chair. She contributed strategic leadership to the expansion of the Laboratory’s civil space portfolio through the formation of a new Civil Space Systems and Technology Office. In 2023, she was appointed a member of the National Defense Science Board’s Permanent Subcommittee on Threat Reduction.
She previously led the Homeland Protection and Air Traffic Control Division, which supports the nation’s security by innovating technology and architectures to help prevent terrorist attacks within the United States and to facilitate recovery from either man-made or natural disasters through sensor development, architecture studies, and prototypes for disaster response.
Before leading the Homeland Protection and Air Traffic Control Division, she was appointed an assistant head of the Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance and Tactical Systems Division after serving as the leader of the Active Optical Systems Group.
Choi joined Lincoln Laboratory in 1999 as a member of the technical staff in the Advanced System Concepts Group, where she focused on systems analysis for ISR and tactical applications related to surface surveillance. Her work included mission analyses at scales ranging from small team operations to theater conflicts against peer competitors, and sensor projects ranging from unattended ground sensors and small unmanned aerial vehicles to large aircraft and constellations of space-based assets. In 2006, she became an assistant leader of the group before transitioning to become an assistant leader and then the leader of the Systems and Analysis Group, which provides technical analysis to U.S. Air Force leadership on air vehicle survivability and the potential capabilities and limitations of ISR and tactical systems. In this role, she led new analysis and test efforts focused on U.S. platform, payload, and electronic attack options.
Choi completed her undergraduate work at Ithaca College, majoring in mathematics. She received a PhD degree in applied mathematics from North Carolina State University, where she modeled radio-frequency bonding of adhesives in composites for use in the automotive industry.
Commercial innovation is a key component of U.S. national security strategy, but the specialized needs of national security often make harnessing this innovation difficult. As the Department of Defense’s largest Federally Funded Research and Development Center, MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory's mission is to close this gap and spark disruptive solutions. This talk will highlight how Lincoln Laboratory 1) works with the DoD to analyze its most pressing problems; 2) develops advanced technology or harnesses commercial capabilities to make new solutions possible; 3) creates prototypes to validate solutions or address urgent needs; and 4) efficiently transitions prototypes to the private sector for commercial development. These four overlapping capabilities are the fundamental building blocks of the Laboratory’s innovation engine for national security. We will feature examples of significant technologies that have moved out of the lab and into the military and marketplace for real-world impact.
Professor, MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Executive Director, MIT Technology Licensing Office
Lesley Millar-Nicholson is the Executive Director of MIT’s Technology Licensing Office (TLO) and was part of the Founding Leadership team of MIT Office of Strategic Alliances and Technology Transfer (OSATT) formed in 2019. As TLO Executive Director, she leads a team of technology transfer professionals. Together, they manage MIT’s intellectual assets and technology transfer process involving over 11,000 unique pending and issued US and foreign patents, and hundreds of copyright and open source assets. The team engages broadly with stakeholders to facilitate engagements leading to licenses for qualified third parties to deliver on the TLO mission to have impact through technology commercialization.
Prior to arriving in Cambridge Ms. Millar-Nicholson had served for ten years as Director of the Office of Technology Management (OTM) at the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign.
Ms. Millar-Nicholson is a past President Board of Governors of Certified Licensing Professionals Inc, a member of AUTM and the Licensing Executive Society, and a past Board Member of Cambridge Enterprise, UK. A native of Scotland, Ms. Millar-Nicholson has a B.Ed., M.Ed., MBA and is a Certified Licensing Professional.
Executive Editor, MIT Technology Review
Amy Nordrum is an executive editor at MIT Technology Review. She produces the publication’s annual lists of 10 Breakthrough Technologies, 15 Climate Tech Companies to Watch, and 35 Innovators Under 35. Amy previously worked as news manager for IEEE Spectrum. For six years, she was a regular contributor to the popular radio show Science Friday. Amy has a master’s degree in Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting from New York University and an MBA from NYU’s Stern School of Business.
Artificial intelligence is a core topic of coverage for the newsroom at MIT Technology Review, and the journalists who work there are always looking ahead to what’s coming next. That’s especially challenging for the fast-moving field of artificial intelligence, where it can be particularly difficult to distinguish hype from reality. Executive editor Amy Nordrum will share the major developments and recent advances that the newsroom is watching closely, touching on topics like generative search, AI agents, AI in gaming, small language models, AI companions, and more. Consider this your primer on which areas of AI are most important to know about and worth watching in the months ahead.
Explore how groundbreaking science and technology translate into market-ready solutions and drive corporate growth. Learn to identify and capitalize on emerging opportunities, understand pathways to commercialization and innovation strategies, and see how your company can benefit from university-industry partnerships through real-world examples. Walk away with actionable insights to drive progress and growth within your organization.
Senior Lecturer, MIT Sloan School of Management
Paul Cheek is a serial tech entrepreneur, entrepreneurship educator, software engineer, author, and patented inventor. He is the Executive Director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, a Senior Lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the MIT Sloan School of Management, and the author of Disciplined Entrepreneurship: Startup Tactics. Paul was MIT’s first Hacker in Residence and has since taught, mentored, and advised thousands of entrepreneurs around the world. Paul was named to Forbes 30 Under 30, the definitive list of young people changing the world. Paul is a co-founder of Oceanworks, a for-profit company with a mission to end plastic pollution, and previously co-founded Work Today, a venture-backed digital staffing and recruiting company. Paul advises startups and both speaks and consults with Fortune 500 companies and universities globally to advance entrepreneurship.
This session unveils the rise of artificial-intelligence-driven enterprises (AIDEs) that fuse the global ambition of innovation-driven startups with the lean efficiency of SMEs. We’ll examine how founders wield generative AI across R&D, go-to-market, and operations to slash innovation debt, reach $100M+ ARR with <50 people, and open pathways for regions with limited venture capital to compete globally. Attendees will leave with a framework for building, funding, and scaling their own AIDE internal ventures—and insights into what this shift means for talent, policy, and the future of corporate R&D.
Global electricity demand is projected to nearly double by 2050, driven by the rapid electrification of buildings, transportation, and manufacturing. Compounding this pressure is the exponential growth of AI. While AI offers transformative potential across industries, it is also emerging as a significant energy consumer. Data centers, the digital engines powering AI, have more than doubled their electricity consumption since 2018 and now account for 4.4% of global demand. In the U.S., they are expected to consume up to 12% of total electricity by 2028.
This track will explore how the world can meet rising energy needs through the rapid expansion of sustainable energy production. From fusion and next-generation nuclear to renewables, grid-scale storage, decentralized systems, and forward-looking policies, we will examine the innovations and frameworks critical to building a resilient, low-carbon energy future. Addressing this challenge will require a bold vision, accelerated technological advancement, and unprecedented global collaboration.
This session explores the transformative dynamics of the New Space era, where commercial innovation, rapid development cycles, and expanded access to space are redefining what’s possible. Presenters will highlight emerging technologies, novel mission approaches, and cross-sector collaborations driving this shift. Topics may include advances in Earth observation and sensing, the proliferation of small satellite platforms, and research in space physiology to support human spaceflight. Whether technological, scientific, or entrepreneurial, these developments exemplify how New Space is reshaping the space ecosystem and opening new frontiers for exploration, application, and impact.
Sheila Evans Widnall (1960) Professor, MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
The next wave of innovation is being shaped by AI systems that don’t just respond; they act. From agentic AI that collaborates and makes decisions autonomously to decentralized architectures that push intelligence to the edge, MIT researchers are leading the charge. They are reimagining how organizations secure, interpret, and operationalize data.
This track brings together thought leaders from across MIT to explore the strategic, organizational, and human implications of AI at scale. Topics will include quantum-safe infrastructure, explainable AI, cyber-physical resilience, agent-based platforms, and the role of trust, transparency, and ethics in intelligent systems.
For enterprises navigating an era defined by autonomy, agility, and risk, this track connects frontier research with real-world impact.
The future of materials science lies in the seamless integration of molecular precision, functional performance, and nanoscale understanding. This session brings together leading MIT researchers whose work spans the full spectrum of advanced materials innovation—from the bottom-up design of molecular architectures to the real-world deployment of materials and the tools that reveal their behavior at the atomic scale.
Life sciences are no longer confined to the realm of biology—they have evolved into a multidisciplinary frontier. This session examines the dynamic intersection of biology, engineering, and computational science, where bold ideas give rise to transformative innovation. By integrating AI, advanced technologies, and foundational biological research, the session will highlight how cross-disciplinary collaboration accelerates the path from scientific discovery to real-world application at MIT. Emphasizing the translation of visionary research into impactful solutions, this track invites participants to reimagine what becomes possible when disciplines converge to shape the future.
Underwood-Prescott Career Development Professor, MIT Biological Engineering
Prof. Jessica Stark received her B.S. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Cornell University. After graduation, she worked at Genentech, Inc. in process development and research and development roles. Jessica then went on to complete her Ph.D. in Chemical and Biological Engineering with Prof. Michael Jewett at Northwestern University. Here, she developed cell-free technologies for protein therapeutic and vaccine production that promise to enable portable and personalized medicine. As a postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Carolyn Bertozzi at Stanford University, Jessica’s work focused on identifying and targeting glycans that act as immune checkpoints for next-generation cancer immunotherapy. Jessica joined the faculty at MIT as an Assistant Professor in the departments of Biological Engineering and Chemical Engineering and as an intramural member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research in Jan 2024. The Stark Lab is developing biological technologies to realize the largely untapped potential of glycans for immunological discovery and immunotherapy.
On day two, after lunch at 12:40 PM, join the ILP for a unique opportunity to explore MIT through concurrent tours, each providing an in-depth look at the institute’s innovation ecosystem. Sign-up boards will be available at the registration desk starting in the morning.
Take a guided tour of our dynamic campus and experience firsthand how MIT is making a better world. From cutting edge research to innovation, from world-renowned architecture to rich community life, the MIT campus is a treasure to explore. MIT is also the heart of the vibrant innovation district of Kendall Square, the most innovative square mile in the world – come see how academics, entrepreneurs, corporations and non-profits make it all happen.