Hosted by Whirlpool
What’s next for the home of the future? Are voice-assistants the new killer app? How will advances in technology impact tomorrow’s lifestyle? What is the role of artificial intelligence? Will homes fundamentally change? Join the MIT Startup Exchange, MIT Industrial Liaison Program, MIT faculty, investors, and corporate innovators at Whirlpool to explore innovations that will build the home of the future and how this latest technology will affect your business.
About MIT Startup Exchange MIT Startup Exchange actively promotes collaboration and partnerships between MIT-connected startups and industry. Qualified startups are those founded and/or led by MIT faculty, staff, or alumni, or are based on MIT-licensed technology. Industry participants are principally members of MIT’s Industrial Liaison Program (ILP).
MIT Startup Exchange maintains a propriety database of over 1,500 MIT-connected startups with roots across MIT departments, labs and centers; it hosts a robust schedule of startup workshops and showcases, and facilitates networking and introductions between startups and corporate executives.
STEX25 is a startup accelerator within MIT Startup Exchange, featuring 25 “industry ready” startups that have proven to be exceptional with early use cases, clients, demos, or partnerships, and are poised for significant growth. STEX25 startups receive promotion, travel, and advisory support, and are prioritized for meetings with ILP’s 230 member companies.
MIT Startup Exchange and ILP are integrated programs of MIT Corporate Relations.
Trond heads up the Startup Initiative at MIT’s Industrial Liaison Program (ILP), facilitating productive relationships between industry and MIT’s startup ecosystem. He is a former Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Trond is a serial entrepreneur with Scandinavian roots, and is currently the Founder of Yegii, Inc., the insight network, and Managing Director of Tautec Consulting.
Trond is a leading expert on technology development across industries such as IT, Energy, and Healthcare. His knowledge spans entrepreneurship, strategy frameworks, policy making, action learning, virtual teamwork, knowledge management, standardization, and e-government. He wrote the book Leadership From Below (2008). Trond speaks six languages and is a frequent public speaker on business, technology, and wine.
Trond was a Strategy/business development executive at Oracle Corp. (2008-12), and a policy maker in the EU (2004-8) where he built the ePractice.eu web platform with 120,000 members. He has worked with multinational companies, with mid-caps and startups in Brazil, China, Colombia, France, Indonesia, Norway, the UK, and the US. He has a PhD in Multidisciplinary Technology Studies from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
Mr. Christian Gianni has been Senior Vice President of Technology at Whirlpool Corp since 2015. Mr. Gianni served as Senior Vice President of Product Development at Whirlpool Corp. since April 2010 until April 2015. Mr. Gianni has 22 years of experience in the home appliance industry. He served as Chief Technical Officer of Fisher & Paykel Appliances Holdings Ltd. since 2004 and also served as its Vice President of Engineering He served as Vice President of Engineering at Fisher & Paykel Appliances, Inc. He began his career at Fisher & Paykel, where he started in 1988 as a design engineer. He was named General Manager of Engineering in 2000 and was responsible for product design across all global platforms.
Federico is Executive Vice President of Design at Samsung Electronics. He heads the Samsung Design Innovation Center (SDIC) in San Francisco CA Next-Generation Experience Planning Team in Seoul and Experience and Insights teams within Samsung Research. Federico leads global multidisciplinary teams in the USA Asia and Europe to design new generation of experiences and envision future products. As a designer innovator and social scientist he focuses on the impact of networked digital technologies on human behavior and society and designs products services and meaningful experiences to improves people’s lives. Before joining Samsung Federico was an Associate Professor of the Practice at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology teaching at MIT and MIT Media Lab. He also founded and directed the MIT Design Lab and the MIT Mobile Experience Lab. He previously worked at Motorola Inc. and Philips Design envisioning and creating innovative product experiences. He has been awarded honorary professorships at the Glasgow School of Art University of Glasgow and the Jiangnan University School of Design in Wuxi China. He has published several scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals along with books and articles and he has won several awards for his design and innovation work. Federico earned the PhD degree in Sociology of Culture and Communication from the Sorbonne University Paris V with a focus on mediated communication and social interaction in networked communities and smart cities.
Research Scientist MIT Media Lab
Ariel Noyman is a researcher and a project leader at the MIT Media Lab's Changing Places group. He oversees the integration of the group's diverse research topics (city simulation, urban mobility, innovation districts and smart housing) to provide comprehensive solutions for large scale urban questions.
Noyman is an architect and an urban designer with more than a decade of experience in large-scale urban design, institutional and public projects, urban data visualization and graphic design. He practiced at leading architectural and design firms in the US, Europe and Israel. His work was featured in Domus, Archdaily, Dezeen and the Guardian to name a few.
Noyman taught architecture, urbanism and city science at MIT, Northeastern University and Bezalel Academy. He holds a Bachelor of Architecture (Cum Laude, ‘08) from the Bezalel Academy of Arts & Design, Jerusalem and a Master of Science in Architecture and Urban Design program from MIT where he held a research assistant position at the Center For Advanced Urbanism.
At Affectiva, Gabi is responsible for all marketing, leading the strategic direction of its products and solutions, driving expansion into new markets, and growing industry adoption of Emotion AI. In the past twenty years Gabi has held a variety of marketing, product management, channel and international positions at ON Technology, Dragon Systems, Be Free, Centra and Segue Software. Prior to joining Affectiva, Gabi was at IBM where she first led a product management team and then worldwide marketing for Linux and Open Virtualization. Gabi has a graduate degree in Art History and Archeology from Utrecht University in The Netherlands.
Simon invented the StandX and founded Robilis. His strong background in mechanical dynamics (BS in physics) and the understanding of the nervous system (PhD in neuroscience; MIT neuroscientist) made it possible to create a machine that meets the needs of the body.
His passion is to make intelligent robots for people. This made him go through a long way to figure out how the brain works. In neuroscience community he is best known for his work on the circuit of motivation and learning. With this knowledge he is hoping to make robots like humans someday.
Musings on smart home, future living spaces, and artificial intelligence from MIT startup founders and leaders from the STEX25 Accelerator.
Dr. Catherine Havasi is a technology strategist, AI researcher, and entrepreneur who has been working to apply emerging AI technology to real problems. She is the Chief Product Officer of Basis Technology. Previously, she founded the MIT startups Luminoso and Dalang and worked as a research scientist at the MIT Media Lab.
Jana Eggers is CEO of the neuroscience-inspired artificial intelligence platform company, Nara Logics. Eggers is an experienced tech exec focused on inspiring teams to build great products. Eggers has started and grown companies and led large organizations at public companies. She is active in customer-inspired innovation, the artificial intelligence industry, the Autonomy/Mastery/Purpose-style leadership, as well as running and triathlons. Eggers has held technology and executive positions at Intuit, Blackbaud, Los Alamos National Laboratory (computational chemistry and super computing), Basis Technology (internationalization technology), Lycos, American Airlines, Spreadshirt (ecomm), and multiple startups.
Musings on smart home, future living spaces, and artificial intelligence from MIT startup founders and leaders.
Brett Dibkey was recently named Vice President, Brand & Strategy in June, 2017. Brett’s accountabilities include leading our brand and digital marketing efforts, IoT strategy, consumer and shopper marketing/insights, and our consumer products and licensing businesses.
He was appointed to lead our Integrated Business Units, in May, 2012. Previously, he was General Manager for the North American Dishwashing Category at Whirlpool.
Prior to joining Whirlpool, Brett spent seven years at Pfizer where he worked in various strategy and business development functions.
Before assuming this role, Brett spent six years at a national consulting firm where he lead a variety of strategic growth engagements for large, multi-national clients, primarily in the manufacturing and financial services sectors.
Brett earned his MBA from The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
A Silicon Valley veteran with a track record of scaling and rebooting organizations, Dean has led public and private companies and Fortune 500 subsidiaries, in Chairman, CEO, board and advisor roles. Dean’s been chief executive of over a dozen firms, leading them through expansion, turnaround, roll-up, spin-out, M&A and IPO phases. He has been a frequent media guest on CNBC, NBC, FOX, CNN and ABC, a CEO guest host on NBC’s The Celebrity Apprentice, a co-author of the best-selling book The Big Moo, and a co-founding board member and entrepreneurial mentor at 1871 in Chicago. Dean is a faculty member at Kellogg School of Management, an Educational Technology Fellow at Northwestern University, a Board Leadership Fellow at the National Association of Corporate Directors, and a Senior Fellow at the Kellogg Innovation Network.
Yann Kulp is VP SmartSpace USA at Schneider Electric, a $30 Billion global leader in energy management solutions. His US-based team develops & markets energy management solutions for homes & small buildings in North America, with offers such as Smart StruXure Lite, Building Insights & www.wiserair.com . Prior to this role, Yann was based in Paris as Director Communications – Residential & Commercial controls for Schneider Electric EMEAS, and also held sales, marketing & strategy roles at Legrand & Schneider Electric in US & Europe. Yann studied business in France, followed by an MBA at Syracuse University. Since 2012 he is based in Chicago with his wife & their 3 children, serves of the board of the French-American Chamber of Commerce and of CABA.org where he also chairs the Connected Home Committee, and is active in the Chicago clean-tech community. His next big goal ? Owning & driving year-round Model A Ford. And – after jumping into Lake Michigan for the Polar Plunge in 2016 – doing it again in 2017.
The panel will explore innovations that will build the home of the future and how this latest technology will affect your business.
Subho Moulik is head of innovation for Whirlpool Corp., where he is responsible for driving innovation across the company globally. Moulik has more than 15 years of experience working with consumer products and with companies doing business in the consumer-durables sector. Prior to joining Whirlpool in 2015, he worked with McKinsey & Co. in their London, Delhi, and Chicago offices in areas of innovation, marketing, strategy, and margin improvement. At McKinsey & Co., he was a leader within the consumer-sector-growth service line, and he established and led the global consumer-growth analytics team. Moulik currently serves on the advisory boards for Samhita Social Ventures and the Krasl Art Center.