The world is facing unprecedented challenges with the COVID-19 pandemic, further complicating complex global innovation trends and demanding unparalleled response from governments and organizations alike. As China and other affected Asian nations have been fighting the pandemic, forward-looking collaborations in technology development and innovation are more important than ever. This key element of collaboration in addressing global innovation is a hallmark of MIT’s problem-solving approach, especially amidst our current global challenges.
In the coming months, the MIT Industrial Liaison Program (ILP) is pleased to present a special webinar series featuring leading researchers and field experts to share insights in energy, nanomaterials, novel photonics, robotics, city planning, healthcare, and more.
We invite you to join the 2020 MIT ILP Regional Webinar Series to engage and explore topics with our experts, including opportunities to interact with academics and global ILP member executives, to drive national and international economic growth through innovation and entrepreneurship in each covered field.
This session will highlight startups of great interest to our Chinese and Southeast Asian corporates in energy, materials, robotics, and healthcare.
Program Director, MIT Startup Exchange
Dr. Rebecca Xiong joined Corporate Relations as Program Director, Startup Exchange in October 2018.
Dr. Xiong comes to Corporate Relations with more than 15 years of experience in the MIT Startup Ecosystem, having co-founded and worked at multiple MIT startups. Most recently, as Co-founder and Chief Scientist at SocMetrics, she leads product management, data science, and machine learning for SocMetric’s personalization and marketing campaign products. Before SocMetrics, Xiong co-founded Going.com. Going.com connected people via local events to enhance their offline social life, and through Rebecca’s leadership grew to 1M members, tens of millions of monthly pageviews, and finally its acquisition by AOL. Before these two entrepreneurial endeavors, Xiong held positions as Product Marketing Manager (DataPower, acquired by IBM), Senior Program Manager (Performaworks, acquired by Workscape), and Team Lead (Akamai Technologies). She also has research experience at Microsoft, Silicon Graphics, and Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.
Dr. Xiong earned her B.S. in Computer Science at the University of California at Berkeley, and her Ph.D. in Computer Science at the Media Lab at MIT with her thesis “Visualizing Information Spaces to Enhance Social Interaction." She was a National Science Foundation (NSF) Fellowship Recipient. She holds multiple patents and is very involved in the community, as the Lead Organizer of the Cambridge Parent Summit.
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 is a community of over 1,900 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 260 member companies.
MIT Startup Exchange and ILP are integrated programs of MIT Corporate Relations.
Dr. Ricardo Oliveira is cofounder and CTO of 2D Materials. He has more than 15 years of experience in materials science and engineering. Dr. Oliveira was formerly the senior research fellow and manager of the Industrial Development Laboratory, Centre for Advanced 2D Materials at the National University of Singapore, and he led the development of 2DM’s technology.
Bob joined Xtalic in 2015 as vice president of research and development. He is responsible for seeking out and developing new product technologies and engaging with customers to solve challenging technical problems. He has over 20 years of experience in global research and development and product development roles. From 2007 to 2012, Bob led research and development at Tyco Electronics and from 2012 to 2014, he was the chief technology officer at TE Circuit Protection Business. Bob has a history of implementing new materials and process technologies in broad industries including consumer electronics, automotive, industrial, and communications. He holds a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Temple University and a Ph.D. in Materials Engineering and Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Energy & Materials
Thanos Kosmidis received his MEng in Computing from Imperial College (UK), his MS in Information Networking from Carnegie Mellon University (USA), and has been an Advanced Study Fellow at MIT’s Sloan School of Management (USA).
He has 20 years of experience in the technical and commercial divisions of high-tech companies in USA and Europe. His last post, which he left to build CareAcross, was that of deputy director at a large telecommunications' firm strategic commercial planning department.
He has solid experience in managing multiple local and remote teams, including growing a team of 5 to reach 180 people across three countries and five timezones. He has led multimillion dollar projects from inception to delivery, and is experienced in the full lifecycle of products and services.
Mr. Kosmidis is an active member of the international Health 2.0 organisation promoting the application of technology in healthcare, and a frequently invited speaker and presenter at international conferences in digital health.
Finally, Mr. Kosmidis is serving as a Assembly Member for the European Commission’s “Mission on Cancer”, and as a technology expert for the European Commission Initiative on Breast Cancer (ECIBC), and the Quality Assurance Scheme Development Group (QASDG) in particular.
Jennifer is an 18-year Wall Street veteran who has been active in blockchain since 2014 with passion to drive open banking. Before she co-founded BlockTEST with MIT research scientists in 2018, she’d led at global and regional leadership roles at JPMorgan and previously at Merrill Lynch and Citigroup, across investment banking and global capital markets. Currently Jennifer also serves as a senior advisor at Harvard CAM Lab and advisor committee of ID2020, a global alliance committed to digital identity. Jennifer holds an M. Sc in Management of Technology from MIT, an MBA from McGill University and a Bachelor in Statistics from Renmin University of China.
Robotics & Healthcare