[Em]Powering the Future: Transforming Ideas into Reality
Education Partner
Conference Recordings:
Recordings will be available exclusively to ILP members. To learn more about becoming a member, click here.
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.
Manager, Business Development and Marketing, MIT Professional Education
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.
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
Dr. Christine Wang is Co-Founder and CTO of Diffraqtion, a deeptech startup developing the next generation of machine vision sensors and processors that deliver ultra-sharp imaging, high inference speed, and strong energy efficiency. She has more than 20 years of R&D experience in the field of optics and photonics, especially quantum sensors, imaging system,s and photonic integrated circuits. Before Diffraqtion, she was the Director of Optics and Photonics at Riverside Research, and prior to that, a Principal Scientist at The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory.
She received her Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University and was a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at Max-Planck Institute of Quantum Optics and EPFL in Lausanne.
Founder and CEO, Aperture Space
Dr. Zachary Kabelac is a two-time Founder and CEO of Aperture. He received his Bachelor's, Master's, and PhD from MIT in electrical engineering, specializing in radar and analytics. He’s spent the last 5 years building satellite systems and hydrology models to advance agricultural and irrigation practices with farmers. Before that, he successfully co-founded and bootstrapped his first company, Emerald Innovations, which sells a radar and insights platform for long-term health monitoring. With no external funding, it generates over $5 million in annual revenue with a team of 30. He presented Emerald to President Obama in the White House, has a Big Bang Theory episode, TedTalk, and received a Forbes 30 under 30.
Head of Business Operations , Nominal
Founder & CEO, DiploAI
Baptiste Bouvier is the founder and CEO of DiploAI, an AI-powered platform that is revolutionizing the way manufacturers manage legal and regulatory compliance. Recognizing the challenges companies face in navigating complex regulatory landscapes, Baptiste launched DiploAI to streamline the discovery, analysis, and distribution of critical legal and regulatory changes, empowering organizations to stay ahead of compliance requirements with unmatched efficiency. As CEO, Baptiste is dedicated to transforming regulatory risk management through advanced AI and real-time analytics. DiploAI has become a trusted partner for businesses seeking to simplify compliance processes and enhance operational decision-making.
Baptiste earned his Computer Science degree from MIT and further enriched his expertise by studying Public Policy at Oxford, seamlessly bridging technical innovation with regulatory insight. Prior to founding DiploAI, he worked at organizations such as McKinsey, Microsoft, Facebook, and JP Morgan. Baptiste is based in New York.
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
The classical approach to AI was to design systems that were rational at run-time: they had explicit representations of beliefs, goals, and plans, and ran inference algorithms online to select actions. More recently, relatively unstructured, data-driven end-to-end approaches have achieved great success across a wide range of domains and have begun to seem like a plausible path to general-purpose intelligent robots. However, we are now seeing the limits of pure behavior learning, and many practitioners are reintegrating forms of search and explicit reasoning into their approaches.
Leslie Kaelbling will revisit the rational-agent approach to designing intelligent robots from the perspectives of engineering effort, computational efficiency, cognitive modeling, and interpretability. She will present current research aimed at understanding the role of learning in runtime-rational agents, with the ultimate goal of constructing general-purpose, human-level intelligent robots.
Professor, MIT Sloan School of Management
Yasheng Huang is a Professor of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School and also holds the Epoch Foundation (时代基金会)Professorship of Global Economics and Management. From 2013 to 2017, he served as an Associate Dean in charge of MIT Sloan’s Global Partnership programs and its Action Learning initiatives. His previous appointments include faculty positions at the University of Michigan and at Harvard Business School.
Huang is the author of 11 books in both English and Chinese and of many academic papers (such as on regulatory transparency, historical autocracy, statistical falsifications, tax, financing, sectoral and regulatory biases, history of reforms and strategy, political economy of controls, etc.) His book, The Rise and Fall of the EAST: How Exams, Autocracy, Stability, and Technology Brought China Success, and Why They Might Lead to Its Decline, will be published in paperback by Yale University Press in 2025. The book was a 2023 Best Book of the Year by Foreign Affairs magazine. He is collaborating with other scholars on a book project, Reframing the Needham Question, based on a comprehensive database of Chinese historical inventions (under contract with Princeton University Press). His book, Statism with Chinese Characteristics (under contract at Cambridge University Press), examines economic reforms and economic performance of China since 1978. Huang was a co-principal investigator in a large-scale multi-disciplinary research project on food safety in China.
Outside of his academic research, Huang has written for The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Foreign Policy and Foreign Affairs, Project Syndicate, Caixin, and Caijing. He is working on several policy projects related to US-China relations. He was one of the coauthors of MIT’s report, “University Engagement with China: An MIT Approach,” and he is a co-chair of an implementation committee of that report. He is a member of a task force at Asia Society on US-China policy and a member of the Brookings-CSIS Advisory Council on Advancing US-China collaboration. During 2023-4, he is a visiting fellow at the Kissinger Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC.
Huang founded and runs China Lab, ASEAN Lab, and India Lab, which have provided low-cost consulting services to hundreds of small and medium enterprises in these countries. From 2015 to 2018, he ran a program in Yunnan province to train women entrepreneurs (funded by Goldman Sachs Foundation). He has held or received prestigious fellowships such as the National Fellowship at Stanford University and the Social Science Research Council-MacArthur Fellowship. The National Asia Research Program named him one of the most outstanding scholars in the United States, conducting research on issues of policy importance to the United States. He has served as a consultant at the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the OECD, and serves on advisory and corporate boards of non-profit and for-profit organizations. He is a founding member and serves as the president of the Asian American Scholar Forum, an NGO dedicated to open science, protection of rights, and the well-being of Asian American scholars.
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.
General Partner, The Engine Ventures
As a General Partner, Michael spends his time working to accelerate the deployment of new technologies to solve some of the world's greatest challenges, with a particular focus on Climate Change mitigation. He serves as a Board Member for Addis Energy, AtmosZero, Blue Energy, Mantel, Osmoses, Pascal, Sora Fuel, and VEIR, and as a Board Observer for Copernic and Terragia.
Michael's career spans the intersection of finance, research and entrepreneurship. Michael began on the entrepreneurship side, helping launch Ambri, a grid-scale energy storage startup where he led market and business development efforts in the early days of the energy storage industry, working with customers in electric power across the United States.
Michael joined Engine Ventures after a stint in academia, as the Executive Director of the MIT Roosevelt Project, an interdisciplinary project on energy transition pathways to accelerate progress toward a clean energy economy. Michael's research areas focused on energy and innovation economics and policy and entrepreneurial strategy and has been published in peer-reviewed journals including Research Policy, Strategy Science, National Bureau of Economic Research Innovation Policy and the Economy, and the New England Journal of Medicine, among others.
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.
Principal Research Scientist, MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering
Dr. Charles Forsberg directed the MIT Nuclear Fuel Cycle Study and is the principal investigator for the MIT Fluoride Salt-Cooled High-Temperature Reactor Project to build a salt loop at the MIT reactor. Before joining MIT, he was a Corporate Fellow at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). He is a Fellow of the American Nuclear Society (ANS) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Forsberg received the 2002 ANS Special Award for Innovative Nuclear Reactors (Fluoride-salt-cooled high-temperature reactors and PIUS-BWR), and in 2005, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Robert E. Wilson Award in recognition of chemical engineering contributions to nuclear energy, including his work on reprocessing, waste management, repositories, and production of liquid fuels using nuclear energy. He received the 2014 Seaborg Award from the ANS for advancements in nuclear energy. He was recently a Director of the American Nuclear Society (2019-2022). Dr. Forsberg holds 12 patents and has published more than 300 papers. Two of his technologies are now being commercialized by startup companies.
Professor, MIT Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering
A recognized leader in fusion research, especially in the magnetic confinement of plasmas, Whyte has paved an innovative and faster path to producing fusion energy. He leads the fusion project, SPARC — a compact, high-field, net fusion energy fusion device — in collaboration with private fusion startup Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS). The core of the SPARC project was formed over eight years ago during a design course led by Whyte to challenge assumptions in fusion. Many of the ideas underpinning the high-field approach — including the use of HTS for high-field, demountable magnets, liquid blankets, and ARC (a fusion power plant concept) — have been conceived of or significantly advanced in his design courses. Whyte has over 300 publications, is a fellow of the American Physical Society, and has served on panels for the National Academies, the United States government, and the Royal Society. In 2018, Whyte received The Fusion Power Associates (FPA) Board of Directors Leadership Award, which is given annually to individuals who have shown outstanding leadership qualities in accelerating the development of fusion. Whyte earned a BS from the University of Saskatchewan, and an MS and PhD from Université du Québec.
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.
Raymond A. (1921) And Helen E. St. Laurent Professor, MIT Department of Chemical Engineering
J. Christopher Love, Raymond A. (1921) and Helen E. St. Laurent Professor of Chemical Engineering, is a member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. He is also an Associate Member at both the Broad Institute and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard. Love earned a BS in chemistry from the University of Virginia and a PhD in physical chemistry at Harvard University under the supervision of George Whitesides. He extended his research into immunology at Harvard Medical School with Hidde Ploegh from 2004-2005, and at the Immune Disease Institute from 2005-2007. Love has been named a W.M. Keck Distinguished Young Scholar for Medical Research (2009), a Dana Scholar for Human Immunology (2009), and a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar. Love served as a Distinguished Engineer in Residence at Biogen from 2015-2016. He has co-authored more than 100 manuscripts and is an inventor on multiple patents related to single-cell analysis and biomanufacturing. Professor Love is co-founder of OneCyte Biotechnologies, HoneyComb Biotechnologies, and Sunflower Therapeutics. He also serves as an advisor to Repligen, QuantumCyte, and Alloy Therapeutics.
A. Thomas Guertin Professor of Chemistry, MIT Department of Chemistry
Prof. Johnson is the A. Thomas Geurtin Professor of Chemistry and Associate Head of the Department of Chemistry at MIT. He conducted undergraduate research with Prof. Karen L. Wooley at Washington University in St. Louis, receiving a B.S. in biomedical engineering with a second major in chemistry. He received a PhD in chemistry from Columbia University working with Prof. Nicholas J. Turro and Prof. Jeffrey T. Koberstein. In 2011, following a Beckman Postdoctoral Fellowship at California Institute of Technology with Professors David A. Tirrell and Robert H. Grubbs, he began his independent career as Assistant Professor of Chemistry at MIT. He is currently a member of the MIT Program for Polymers and Soft Matter (PPSM), the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, and the Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard. He is Co-Founder of Window Therapeutics Inc. and Elementium Innovations Inc., both of which are based on technologies (co)developed in his laboratory at MIT. Prof. Johnson received a 2019 ACS Cope Scholar Award, the 2018 Macromolecules-Biomacromolecules Young Investigator Award, the 2018 Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education, a Sloan Research Fellowship, the Air Force Young Investigator Award, the Thieme Journal Award for Young Faculty, the DuPont Young Professor Award, the 3M Non-tenured Faculty Award, and an NSF CAREER award. In 2019 and 2023 he was named a Finalist for the Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists. In 2020 and 2023, bottlebrush prodrugs from his laboratory were awarded the Assay Cascade Award from the Nanoparticle Characterization Laboratory of the National Cancer Institute. He was awarded the 2018 MIT School of Science Undergraduate Teaching Prize. The Johnson Group invents methods and strategies for the synthesis of functional (macro)molecules that address fundamental scientific questions and contribute solutions to global challenges including renewable energy storage, chemical sustainability, and human health.
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.