Hosted by Zhongguancun Development Group
Join the MIT Industrial Liaison Program for the 2019 MIT Beijing Symposium on Smart Cities, hosted by Zhongguancun Development Group.
In order to meet the needs of an ever-growing urban population, cities must become smarter, more sustainable, and more responsive to human behavior. However, building and maintaining these smart cities requires a collaborative, multi-disciplinary approach and implementation. By utilizing machine learning, environmental design, advanced sensing technologies, and more, the city can function as a responsive space, customizable to the unique needs and values of its inhabitants. Adopting innovations within the Internet of Things and human-machine interaction, along with other disruptive technologies, will allow for the successful creation of smart cities, while also improving urban planning and design.
Hear from MIT faculty and startups to learn about their approaches to ease this urbanization and make cities more efficient spaces to live and work.
Dr. Rong is Director of Corporate Relations at MIT. He currently supervises a group of ILP officers who promote and manage the interactions and relationships between the research at MIT and companies worldwide, particularly in greater China and extended Asian countries, to help them stay abreast of the latest developments in technology and business practices.
Previously, Dr. Rong founded IKA, LLC. He has led corporate development and product innovation, and provided strategic advices to companies in corporate strategy, IT leadership, digital transformation, AI, enterprise content management, and customer relationship. He held senior roles in Harte-Hanks and Vignette Corporation. He held an EU postdoctoral research fellowship in the University of Edinburgh in Scotland where he started global collaborative research.
Dr. Rong is on the board of multiple organizations, including 128CUTE since 2005 and MIT Sloan Alumni Association of Boston from 2009 to 2012. He chaired MIT Sloan CIO Symposium from 2009-2011. He is a senior expert invited by international organizations.
Dr. Rong holds a M.B.A. in global and innovation leadership from the MIT Sloan School of Management and Ph.D in numerical computing from University of Guelph in Canada.
Gang Chen is the Carl Richard Soderberg Professor of Power Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He served as the Department Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT from 2013 to 2018. He obtained his PhD degree from the Mechanical Engineering Department at UC Berkeley. He was a faculty member at Duke University and UCLA before joining MIT in 2001. He received an NSF Young Investigator Award, an R&D 100 award, an ASME Heat Transfer Memorial Award, an ASME Frank Kreith Award in Energy, a Nukiyama Memorial Award by the Japan Heat Transfer Society, a World Technology Network Award in Energy, an Eringen medal from the Society of Engineering Science, and the Capers and Marion McDonald Award for Excellence in Mentoring and Advising from MIT. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society, The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He serves on the board of the Asian American Scholar Forum (aasforum.org). He is an academician of Academy Sinica, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, and a member of the US National Academy of Sciences.
Associate Professor of Architecture and Urbanism Director of SMArchS Urbanism Program MIT School of Architecture + Planning
Rafi Segal is an award winning designer and Associate Professor of Architecture and Urbanism at MIT. His practice engages in design and research on both the architectural and urban scale. Segal’s projects include Villa 003 of the ORDOS 100 Project, the Kitgum Peace Museum in Uganda, the Ashdod Museum of Art and more recently the winning proposal for the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem. His current ongoing projects include the design of a new communal neighborhood for a kibbutz in Israel and the curating of the first ever exhibition on the architecture of Alfred Neumann undertaken during the 1960s.
Segal is co-editor of Cities of Dispersal (2008), Territories — Islands, Camps and Other States of Utopia (2003), and A Civilian Occupation (2003), and has exhibited his work widely, most notably at Storefront for Art and Architecture; KunstWerk, Berlin; Witte de With, Rotterdam; Venice Biennale of Architecture; MOMA in New York; and at the Hong Kong/Shenzhen Urbanism Biennale. His writings and exhibitions have provided a critical contribution to architecture’s role in the peripheries of our cities.
Rafi Segal hold a PhD from Princeton University and two degrees from Technion — Israel Institute of Technology — M.Sc and B.Arch. Prior to MIT he taught architecture and urbanism at various European and US schools including Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, Columbia University’s GSAPP, the Cooper Union School of Architecture, and Princeton University.
The talk will present past and on-going work that explores how urban space and architecture can address emerging social trends and environmental changes, utilizing technologies, physical planning and design strategies to promote adaptability and flexibility through interventions across multiple scales of the urban environment.
Research Scientist MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Lab
Yajun Fang received the Ph.D. degree from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She is currently a Research Scientist with MIT Intelligent Transportation and Research Center. She is also the Program Coordinator of the MIT Universal Village (an advanced version of Smart Cities) Program, and the Conference Chair of International Conference on Universal Village. Her research areas focus on machine vision, machine learning, big data analysis, system theory, and their applications for robotics/autonomous vehicles, intelligent transportation systems, intelligent healthcare, future smart cities/universal village.
Human being has been making great stride in modern technology. In the meantime, mother nature has been enduring the footprint left by the evolution of human society. Our current society is facing challenges in both sustainability and environmental pollution due to fast urbanization, limited resources, and increasing senior population. Smart cities that aim to increase efficiency and convenience would not be able to solve fundamental challenges caused by urban lifestyles. Universal Village concept was proposed to enhance human-nature harmony through prudent use of technologies and to address the eco-challenges due to fast urbanization. We will first report our studies on the environmental implications due to urban lifestyles, evaluate current technologies for major intelligent subsystems of smart cities and their validity from UV perspective, then propose UV framework and detailed content of universal village lifestyle and UV-oriented design.
Ms. Zhu is a MIT Sloan Fellow, and Director of Strategy and Marketing in Cell Signaling Technology. She focuses on the enterprise growth strategy in biotech and AI industries. Ms. Zhu has 17-year experience in Telecommunication, Consumer Electronics and Biotech industries. She also has profound insights in big data and artificial intelligence. She holds a MBA from Sloan School of Management and a bachelor degree in Computer Science from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications.
Franz-Josef Ulm is Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering at MIT. A structural engineer by training he joined MIT in 1999, where he is responsible for Materials and Structures. He is an elected member of the US National Academy of Engineering, of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts and of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He is Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of Engineering Mechanics of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Rui has rich practical experience and theoretical foundation in strategic planning, human resources, change management, enterprise operation etc. She has experienced in building and channel innovation of domestic well-known brands, the integration of international mergers and acquisitions, the reorganization and listing of small and medium-sized enterprises, and the transformation of large consumer electronics enterprises from losses to leading in the world. Recently, she expands interests into investment, merger and acquisition, capital operation, education and consulting areas. Master of Business Administration, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Sloan Scholar.
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.
Christina Qi serves as CEO of Elisify, the first modern data marketplace. Previously, she founded Domeyard LP, a hedge fund known for its focus on high frequency trading. She started Domeyard 8 years ago with $1000 in savings. Domeyard trades up to $1 billion USD per day. Her company’s story has been featured on the front page of Forbes and Nikkei, and quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, CNN, NBC, and the Financial Times. Christina is a contributor to the World Economic Forum’s research on AI in finance. She is a visiting lecturer at MIT, including Nobel Laureate Robert Merton’s “Retirement Finance” class since 2014, and and alongside President Emerita Susan Hockfield and Dean David Schmittlein in 2019. Christina teaches Domeyard’s case study at Harvard Business School and other universities.
Christina was elected as a Member of the MIT Corporation, MIT’s Board of Trustees. She was elected Co-Chair of the Board of Invest in Girls in 2019. Christina also sits on the Board of Directors of The Financial Executives Alliance (FEA) Hedge Fund Group, drives entrepreneurship efforts at the MIT Sloan Boston Alumni Association (MIT SBAA), and serves on U.S. Non-Profit Boards Committee of 100 Women in Finance. Her work in finance earned her a spot on the Forbes 30 Under 30 and Boston Business Journal 40 Under 40 lists. She holds an S.B. in Management Science from MIT and is a CAIA Charterholder.
Sid Henderson is responsible for sales at Osaro, a San Francisco based company that makes AI-enabled vision and control software solutions for industrial robots. Osaro partners with top global system integrators and robot manufacturers to help introduce automation for tasks where automation was previously not possible, specifically in distribution centers for picking and placing tasks. Before joining Osaro, Sid worked at Deutsche Bank for 10 years where he was Head of Counterparty Risk for the Americas. He graduated from MIT in 2013 with degrees in Economics and Management.
Mr. Zhiyong Wang is a continuous entrepreneur in the field of data science, and CEO of Shanghai Shurong Data Technology Co., Ltd. Zhiyong is also the vice president of the Digital Governance Branch of the China Information Industry Association, co-founder of the D++ Digital China Innovation Community, SODA, CODA open data challenges, and shareholders of several data technology companies. At present, he is committed to promoting the digital economy in China's open data field while promoting the construction of digital culture. He earned a master's degree in System Design and Management from the MIT.
Mike is the CEO and Founder of Transit X, based in Boston, Massachusetts. He has held management and engineering positions at several technology companies in the Boston area such as CORE Business Technologies and Clear Methods. Transit X is a new mass transit system that is 2 to 10 times faster than buses, trains, and cars. Transit X provides a mobility solution that is convenient, dependable, and environmentally sustainable.
Dan Sturtevant cofounded Silverthread in 2013 to commercialize 15 years of Harvard and MIT research on improving business outcomes for complex software projects. From 2012 through 2015, he researched the empirical foundations of Silverthread’s predictive analytics for design quality and software economics. Sturtevant holds a BS in computer engineering from Lehigh University and an MS in engineering and management and PhD in engineering systems from MIT.
Elisify: Flexible, on-demand financial data marketplace Osaro: Machine Learning Software for Industrial Automation Shurong: Data fusion for multi source urban data Transit X: Sustainable transportation with microrail podway Silverthread: Improving software health and economics
Cedric Pan is Head of Business Development at Robby Technologies, a Silicon Valley start-up founded by two MIT PhD alumni providing self-driving delivery robot services. Pan graduated from Peking University with a bachelor's degree in engineering and attended the master of public policy program at Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Prior to Robby, Pan worked at several Chinese central government institutions, and then joined the OFO Bike Sharing as the Head of Global Business, overseeing the business and operations in North America and Southeast Asia.
David Chung leads business development at BlinkAI. He has extensive experience in managing product and business development at the intersection of machine learning and imaging. Prior to his position at BlinkAI, Chung worked at Intel initiating computer vision efforts in mobile and security systems. His subsequent work in the autonomous driving space focused on delivering perception solutions for L2-L4 vehicles to automotive Tier 1 and OEMs. Chung now brings this deep expertise to BlinkAI to deploy its innovative technology to the automotive and other high volume camera-embedded markets.
Haisheng Zhang, PhD is a Postdoc Fellow at Harvard Medical School and the Broad Institute of MIT. He received his PhD at Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences and is currently the cofounder and CEO of Signet Therapeutics. He is also the former Co-President of MIT-CHIEF and AACR senior member. His work has received several honors, including the Horizon Award, Department of Defense, 2016, Debbie’s Dream Foundation, American Association for Cancer Research, 2017.
Chengtao Li got his PhD from MIT and bachelor's degree from Yao Class in Tsinghua University. He has many years of experience in research and development of machine learning models, and has more than 15 papers published in top-tier venues in AI. He has been selected as Siebel Scholar Class of 2017 and received a Baidu PhD fellowship in 2017-2018.
Graduated from the Civil Engineering Department of Tsinghua University, Bin Hua received his bachelor's degree in structure engineering in 1994 and his doctorate in disaster prevention and protection engineering in 1999, and the research projects received the second prize for scientific and technological progress of Chinese Education Ministry. He is the general manager and cofounder of Beijing Yunlu Science and Technology Co., Ltd. which is a Chinese leading provider of infrastructure security monitoring solutions dedicated to the application of the digital twin technology to infrastructure security monitoring and integrated disaster prevention and mitigation management.
Robby Technologies: Self-driving delivery robot services BlinkAI: Imaging AI for autonomy, robotics, sensing Signet Therapeutics: Molecular focused cancer therapies Galixir: Intelligent pharmaceutical discoveries Yunlu Technology: Infrastructure security monitoring solutions
Assistant Professor of Physics MIT Department of Physics
Long Ju joined the MIT Physics Department as an assistant professor in January 2019. He received his B.S. in Physics in 2009 from Tsinghua University, China, and his Ph.D. in Physics in 2015 from the University of California, Berkeley. He then moved to Cornell University, where he was a Kavli postdoctoral fellow until December 2018.
The realization of smart city relies on the Internet of Things, in which various type of sensors collect and exchange information. In this talk, I will discuss the application of optical detectors in environment monitoring, security, as well as medical and healthcare etc. I will also give several examples of our efforts on developing novel optical detectors based on new materials and mechanisms.
Ruilin has 20+ years experience in management in healthcare industry. Prior to joining CD Capital, Ruilin was the Vice President and General Manager of Commercial Operations for Greater China at Illumina. He also held several leadership positions at Thermo Fisher, including China head of Corporate Marketing and Commercial Operations. Prior to Thermo Fisher, Ruilin held roles as Vice President of Finance at OrbusNeich and Vice President of Business Development at Microport Medical (Group) Co.Ruilin received his doctorate in medical engineering and medical physics from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, a Masters of Business Administration from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, a master's in electrical engineering and computer science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a bachelor's in biomedical engineering from Xi'an Jiaotong University.
George Barbastathis received the Diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 1993 from the National Technical University of Athens and the MSc and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering in 1994 and 1997, respectively, from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech.) After post-doctoral work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he joined the faculty at MIT in 1999, where he is now Professor of Mechanical Engineering. He has worked or held visiting appointments at Harvard University, the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) Centre, the National University of Singapore, and the University of Michigan – Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute in Shanghai, People’s Republic of China. His research interests are three-dimensional and spectral imaging; phase estimation; and gradient index optics theory and implementation with subwavelength-patterned dielectrics. He is member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE), and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). In 2010 he was elected Fellow of the Optical Society of America (OSA).
Trained as a biomedical engineer, Cheryl’s personal mission is to identify promising technologies that address unmet clinical needs and work directly with founders during the venture building process. She was a former Venture Partner at VentureHealth, a Silicon Valley-based healthcare fund, where she coordinated portfolio companies’ growth strategy in the Asia Pacific. Cheryl previously co-founded a mobile health company that facilitates the care of Alzheimer's patients, which was successfully acquired in 2012 and led to her selection as one of Canada’s Next 36. She currently serves as a Board Member of Rootpath and HiFiBio Therapeutics.
Shuyan Cheng is a senior digital executive as the Asia regional head of Digital Trials in Boehringer Ingelheim, where he is responsible for the digital transformation and digital reinvention of clinical development. Prior to Boehringer Ingelheim, he was the Watson Health Consulting Lead in IBM China leading the work with IBM Global to land IBM Watson Health solutions from the US to China.
Computational Imaging (CI) systems consist of two parts: the physical part where light propagates through free space or optical elements such as lenses, prisms, etc. finally forming a raw intensity image on the digital camera; and the computational part, where algorithms try to restore the image quality or extract other type of information from the raw image data. CI approaches cover a broad range of implementations. In one extreme, computer vision, the physical part typically comprises standard imaging optics. At the other extreme, lens-less imaging, the burden of forming images or extracting other types of information from the optical field falls entirely on the computation.
In this seminar I will discuss the emerging trend in deploying Machine Learning (ML) algorithms, and deep neural networks (DNNs) in particular, to cooperate with CI systems for image formation under adverse conditions—a task distinct from image interpretation and pattern recognition where most other ML researchers operate. I will review the basic mathematical and physical underpinnings of CI and ML, emphasizing their common reliance on optimization and regularization. Subsequently, I will review recent and ongoing research on the use of ML for four adverse situations where traditional CI algorithms are typically challenged: (1) super-resolution, i.e. recovering fine detail in undersampled or blurry images; (2) lensless imaging, especially phase retrieval at visible and x-ray wavelengths; (3) image formation at extremely low photon counts; and (4) imaging through scatter. I will also discuss some of the challenges facing this rapidly growing field of research, as well as opportunities for technological applications.