As the world undergoes an unprecedented challenging time, MIT’s Industrial Liaison program (ILP) presents, in collaboration with ZGC, a special symposium in Beijing themed “Emerging Technology, Resilient Business” to share insights in new technological innovations, showcase MIT-related startup enterprises, and further enhance MIT’s links with partners in China and around the globe.
The symposium will be held from 8:30 am – 4:30 pm on November 6th (Beijing time), 2020 in Beijing while virtually broadcast globally.
The symposium will feature keynote presentations by leading MIT professors in the fields from digital transformation, new materials, to manufacturing and new energy to supply chain resilience, as well as show-casing by MIT-related startup enterprises from both the USA (8 startups) and China (4 startups from MIT China alum), reflecting the “mind & hand” motto of MIT in making positive impacts for a better world.
or, copy this URL (https://zgcforum.com.cn/activity/p1/index.html?aid=2020102210010559) to your web browser.
Dr. CJ Guo joined the Office of Corporate Relations as a Senior Industrial Liaison Officer in July, 2015. CJ comes to OCR with 25 years of extensive global experience in technology innovations, portfolio management and business development in emerging and conventional energy sectors with leading multinational corporations in the US, China and Canada.
CJ is a leading expert in emerging energy technologies and energy system transitions. With Shell, he was the Emerging Technology Theme Leader in China/Beijing (2011 to 2015), worked extensively with the Chinese energy communities on the country's future energy landscape, and the Senior Technology Advisor in alternative transportation fuels in the US / Houston (2006-2010), and served during 2010 as Chairman of the Fuel Operations Group for the US DOE FreedomCar Partnership. Prior to joining Shell, CJ has held technology development, commercialization and management positions with Air Liquide (2002-2006) and The BOC Group (1995-2001) after working as a research scientist in oil-sands upgrading with CANMET in Canada (1992-1994).
CJ earned his Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, at CSU, Ohio, his M.S. and B.S., Chemical Engineering at TYUT, China. He has earned various awards from Shell, Air Liquide, BOC, Shanxi Province (China). He holds many patents and has sat on the board of Shenzhen Sanmu Battery Technology Company as an independent board member during 2009-2010.
Karl Koster is the Executive Director of MIT Corporate Relations. MIT Corporate Relations includes the MIT Industrial Liaison Program and MIT Startup Exchange.
In that capacity, Koster and his staff work with the leadership of MIT and senior corporate executives to design and implement strategies for fostering corporate partnerships with the Institute. Koster and his team have also worked to identify and design a number of major international programs for MIT, which have been characterized by the establishment of strong, programmatic linkages among universities, industry, and governments. Most recently these efforts have been extended to engage the surrounding innovation ecosystem, including its vibrant startup and small company community, into MIT's global corporate and university networks.
Koster is also the Director of Alliance Management in the Office of Strategic Alliances and Technology Transfer (OSATT). OSATT was launched in Fall 2019 as part of a plan to reinvent MIT’s research administration infrastructure. OSATT develops agreements that facilitate MIT projects, programs and consortia with industrial, nonprofit, and international sponsors, partners and collaborators.
He is past chairman of the University-Industry Demonstration Partnership (UIDP), an organization that seeks to enhance the value of collaborative partnerships between universities and corporations.
He graduated from Brown University with a BA in geology and economics, and received an MS from MIT Sloan School of Management. Prior to returning to MIT, Koster worked as a management consultant in Europe, Latin America, and the United States on projects for private and public sector organizations.
Ronggui Yang is currently a Professor in the School of Energy and Power Engineering at Huazhong University of Science and Technology. He received his PhD with Professor Gang Chen and Mildred Dresselhaus from MIT in 2006. He was then a faculty member at the University of Colorado Boulder from 2006 to 2019 (on leave since 2018). Ronggui Yang’s research focuses at the intersection of the fundamentals of thermal transport and micro/nano-structured materials, for solving thermal grand challenges. Dr. Yang has published ~180 journal papers, delivered ~200 invited seminars and is associated with ~200 invited and contributed conference talks and posters that garnered numerous best paper/presentation/poster awards. His journal papers are highly cited, with an H-index of 48, a total SCI citation > 10000 times as of October 2020 per Web of Science (an H-Index of 64, a total citation > 16500 times as of October 2020, per Google Scholar). His innovative research has won him numerous awards including the 2020 Nukiyama Award in Thermal Science and Engineering, 2017 Top 10 Physics Breakthroughs, 2014 ITS Young Investigator in Thermoelectrics from International Thermoelectric Society (ITS), the 2010 ASME Bergles-Rohsenow Young Investigator Award in Heat Transfer, an NSF CAREER Award in 2009, the MIT Technology Review’s TR35 Award and the DARPA Young Faculty Award in 2008. He co-founded Kelvin Thermal Technologies Inc. to commercialize thermal ground planes for thermal management of electronics in 2013 and co-founded Radi-Cool Inc. in 2017 to commercialize radiative cooling technology.
Alexander Slocum is the Walter and Hazel May Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT and a member of the US National Academy of Engineering. He has 130+ patents and has helped develop 12 products that have received R&D 100 awards for “one of the one hundred best new technical products of the year”. He has helped start several successful precision manufacturing equipment companies and has a passion for working with industry to solve real problems and identify fundamental research topics. For the past decade his prime focus has been on renewable energy systems.
This presentation will provide an introduction to key new technologies for production of a green future. As the world emerges from the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and seeks to rebuild its economy, if a resurgence in demand for energy is met by hydrocarbons, an accelerated climate change crisis will dwarf the damage caused by COVID-19; a massive opportunity to stop global warming will be lost. Distributed production and trade with good logistics and connections between countries are critical and can be improved with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and a commitment to creating a green future. As the network for transporting goods and services between peoples is made ever better, factories can be set up at nodes along the network on land and sea for the good of all.
Professor of Mechanical Engineering MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering
Nicholas X. Fang received his BS and MS in physics from Nanjing University, and his PhD in mechanical engineering from University of California Los Angeles. He is currently professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. Prior to MIT, he worked as an assistant professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign from 2004 to 2010. Professor Fang’s areas of research look at nanophotonics and nanofabrication. His recognitions include the ASME Chao and Trigger Young Manufacturing Engineer Award (2013); the ICO prize from the International Commission of Optics (2011); an invited participant of the Frontiers of Engineering Conference by National Academies in 2010; the NSF CAREER Award (2009) and MIT Technology Review Magazine’s 35 Young Innovators Award (2008).
Advanced manufacturing has become the powerhouse that trigger innovation of intelligent, flexible, customer-oriented product development and new business models in the industrial ecosystem worldwide. According to the 2019 report of World Economic Forum, manufacturing industries account for 64% of global R&D spending. In the meantime, the rapid emergence of ecological constraints calls for integrated functional products and manufacturing solutions that meet the critical societal challenges such as energy efficiency, carbon emission, worker safety, and environmental regulations at large scale. The scientific breakthroughs of data and interconnectivity driven manufacturing may lead to a paradigm shift of meta-manufacturing, that is, design and processing multifunctional elements at unprecedented precision and heterogeneity.
These multifunctional elements can be exemplified by the emerging architectured metamaterials with integrated functions that are desirable for a broad array of applications in confined spaces, including impact absorption, thermal management and chemical processing, optical transparency, structural morphing, as well as real time monitoring and repair. The control of spatial arrangements with functional printable materials determines the mass transport and energy transfer within architected microreactors, which are significant for many emerging applications, including use in catalytic, biological, battery, or photochemical reactors. In this talk we shall review the state-of-the-art of research in the development of some of the most advanced digital manufactured functional microreactors. We then the outline major challenges in the field and provide our perspectives on future research and development directions.
Energy and sustainability
Robotics & Digital
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.
Mr. Best is the founding CEO of Syzygy Plasmonics. Before starting Syzygy, he worked for Baker Hughes. There he steadily progressed into management, where he gained expertise in quality assurance (Six Sigma Black Belt), regulatory compliance, technology development management, project and personnel management, supply chain management, internal/external communications, and business process architecture. With Syzygy he has successfully raised two funding rounds and is currently focusing on bringing this revolutionary photochemical technology to market.
Jack Baron co-founded Sweetwater Energy as Chairman and CEO in March of 2009, and now serves as the company’s President. Prior to Sweetwater, Mr. Baron served as President of PAETEC Holding Corp., a Fortune 1000 telecommunications company acquired in 2011 by Windstream Corp. (NASDAQ: WIN), one of the largest national telecom carriers. Mr. Baron co-founded PAETEC in 1998 with Arunas Chesonis.
Mr. Baron currently serves on the Board of Directors for Sweetwater Energy and he is Chairman of the Board of Directors for Onestream Network Services. Mr. Baron is an active volunteer with a number of youth groups and schools, including BSA, Greentopia and Habitat for Humanity. Mr. Baron is an active musician in the Rochester, NY area, playing guitar and singing in his rock band, “Don’t Know Jack”.
Dr. Jill S. Becker is CEO of Kebotix, a technology platform company for new AI-discovered chemicals & materials. Jill has done a lot of other entrepreneurial endeavors including founding two successful tech companies, 02139 & Cambridge NanoTech. She is a past Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year winner in energy & materials and a YPOer. Jill earned her PhD & MA in chemistry from Harvard. In her spare time, besides travelling, she loves to spend time with her friends & family. Like most chemists, Jill is a foodie and deeply appreciates hauté gastronomy.
Kartik Venkataraman is CEO of Akasha Imaging, a computational imaging and deep learning startup in Palo Alto, California that is focused on robotic automation in manufacturing and inspection. His interests lie in commercializing deep technology in the areas of computer vision and imaging with specific focus on business development, product management, and strategic planning. He was previously CTO and Founder of Pelican Imaging that focused on computational array cameras for the mobile imaging market and which was later acquired by Xperi Corporation. Prior to founding Pelican, Kartik headed the Computational Camera group at Micron Imaging (Aptina), and held senior research roles at Intel in 3D and medical imaging where he worked on joint programs with Johns Hopkins Medical School, and the Institute for Systems Science in Singapore. He is a recognized thought leader in the imaging field and holds more than 50 patents in the areas connected to computational imaging. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from University of California, Santa Cruz, MS in Computer Engineering from University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and B.Tech (Honors) in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.
Cory Kidd is the founder and CEO of Catalia Health, a patient care management company. The company develops a hardware and software platform that uses a combination of psychology and artificial intelligence to engage patients through interactive conversations. These conversations happen through mobile, web, and interactive robotic interfaces; together these interfaces create a relationship that can reach patients at any time they need support. The data reported back through the system gives Catalia Health’s customers valuable information to understand the daily activities and needs of their patients.
Kidd is a serial entrepreneur who has been working in healthcare technology for nearly two decades. He received his MS and PhD at the MIT Media Lab in human-robot interaction and his BS in computer science at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
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 an 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.
Professor of Mechanical Engineering Co-Director, Center for Clean Water and Clean Energy MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering
Kamal Youcef-Toumi joined the MIT Mechanical Engineering Department faculty in 1985. He earned his advanced degrees (M.S. 1981 and Sc.D. 1985) in Mechanical Engineering from MIT. His undergraduate degree (B.S. in Mechanical Engineering awarded in 1979) is from the University of Cincinnati. Professor Youcef-Toumi's research has focused primarily on design, modeling, simulation, instrumentation, and control theory. The applications have included manufacturing, robotics, automation, metrology and nano/biotechnology. He teaches courses in the fields of dynamic systems; robotics; precision machine design and automatic control systems. Professor Youcef-Toumi was selected as a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator "in recognition of research and teaching accomplishments and academic potential." He served as a member on several professional committees of The National Science Foundation, Chairman of the Information Technology program within The Arab Science and Technology Foundation, Member of the review committee for European Union funded Network of Excellence for Innovative Production Machines and Systems, Member of the Scientific Committee for Qatar Foundation Annual Research Forum, Head of the Controls, Instrumentation and Robotics Area in the Mechanical Engineering Department at MIT, Member of the MIT Council for International Programs, and Research and Strategy Advisor for Qatar Computing Research Institute. He is the Co-Director of the Center for Clean Water and Clean Energy and Co-Director of the Center for Complex Engineering Systems at MIT. Professor Youcef-Toumi has served as a consultant for a several companies including AT&T Bell Laboratories, EDO Corporation, Varian Radiation Division, Gillette Corp., Delta Search Laboratories, Jentek Sensors, Morgan Stanley Co., General Electric, TEKES - National Technology Agency of Finland, Jordan Hospital, Mitsubishi Electric Corp. Penn State University-College of Medicine - Cancer Institute, and Saudi Aramco. He is a member of IEEE and an ASME Fellow. He served as Chairman of the ASME Dynamics Systems & Control Division Robotics Panel. He was an Associate Editor of the ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems Measurement and Controls, the International Program Committee Chairman for the 2010 IFAC Symposium on Mechatronic Systems, and an Associate editor of the ASME's Dynamic Systems and Control Division (DSCD) Conference Editorial Board. He has served as Editor of several symposia/conference proceedings. Professor Youcef-Toumi is the author of over 320 publications, including a textbook on the theory and practice of direct-drive robots. He holds over 48 registered/pending patents. Professor Youcef-Toumi has been an invited lecturer at over 180 seminars at companies, research centers and universities throughout the world.
In 2018 alone, the digital transformation spending was more than $1trillion. Industries that adopted digital technologies and IR4.0 concepts prospered. Their important benefits include enhanced competitiveness and better positioning in the global value chain. These are due to a greater operational effectiveness, cost reduction, superior flexibility and automation in production, improved worker safety, along with digital services and business management. Modern organizations that embraced such digital transformation are forward-thinking, adapt to diverse business environments, innovate in technology and beyond, refine the art of collaboration, and adjust to the changing generation of workers, talent and customers. The presentation will cover some industry practices along with some results illustrating advancements in computing, intelligent robotic systems, and machine intelligence.
Xuanhe Zhao is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. The mission of Zhao Lab is to advance science and technology between humans and machines to address grand societal challenges in health and sustainability. A major current focus is the study and development of soft materials and systems. Dr. Zhao has won early career awards from NSF, ONR, ASME, SES, AVS, Adhesion Society, JAM, EML, and Materials Today. He has been a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher since 2018. Bioadhesive ultrasound, based on Zhao Lab’s work published in Science, was named one of TIME Magazine's Best Inventions of the year in 2022. SanaHeal Inc., based on Zhao Lab’s work published in Nature, was awarded the 2023 Nature Spinoff Prize. Over ten patents from Zhao Lab have been licensed by companies and have contributed to FDA-approved and widely-used medical devices.
Whereas human tissues and organs are mostly soft, wet and bioactive; machines are commonly hard, dry and biologically inert. Merging humans, machines and their intelligence is of imminent importance in addressing grand societal challenges in health, sustainability, security, education and joy of living. However, interfacing humans and machines is extremely challenging due to their fundamentally contradictory properties. At MIT Zhao Lab, we exploit soft materials technology to form long-term, high-efficacy, multi-modal interfaces and convergence between humans and machines.
In this talk, I will first discuss the mechanics and general principles to design extreme properties including tough, resilient, adhesive, strong, fatigue-resistant and conductive for soft materials. Then I will discuss a set of soft materials technology platforms, including i). bio adhesives for instant strong adhesion of diverse wet dynamic tissues and machines; ii).bio electronics for long-term multi-modal neural interfaces; iii). Bio robots for teleoperated and autonomous navigations and operations in previously inaccessible lesions such as in cerebral and coronary arteries. I will conclude the talk with a perspective on future human-machine convergence enabled by soft materials technology.
Yossi Sheffi is an expert in systems optimization, risk analysis and supply chain management. He is author of a text book and seven award-winning management books. His latest books are: “The New Abnormal: Reshaping Business and Supply Chain Strategy Beyond Covid-19,” (October 1, 2020) and “A Shot in the Arm: How Science, Technology and Supply Chains Converged to Vaccinate the World (October 2021).
Under his leadership, MIT CTL has launched many educational, research, and industry/government outreach programs, including the MIT SCALE network involving six academic centers round the world. In 2015, CTL has launched the on-line Micromaster’s program, enrolling over 480,000 students in 196 countries.
Outside the institute, Dr. Sheffi has consulted with numerous organizations. He has also founded or co-founded five successful companies, all acquired later by large enterprises.
Dr. Sheffi has been recognized in numerous ways in academic and industry forums and won dozens of awards.
He obtained his B.Sc from the Technion in Israel in 1975, and SM and Ph.D. from MIT in 1978.
For more information visit: http://sheffi.mit.edu/
In October 1 Professor Sheffi’s new book: The New (Ab)Normal: Reshaping Business and Supply Chain Strategy Beyond Covid-19 was published on Amazon. In the book he maps how the Covid-19 pandemic impacted business, supply chains, and society. The book exposes the critical role supply chains play in helping people, governments, and companies to manage the crisis. Sheffi draws on executive interviews, pandemic media coverage, and historical analyses. Professor Sheffi also builds on themes from his previous books on risk and resilience: The Resilient Enterprise (2005) and The Power of Resilience (2015) to enrich the narrative. The book paints a picture of how the Covid-19 virus is changing many facets of human life and what our post-pandemic world might look like. The intent is that this book will help companies to redefine their business models and adjust to a fast-evolving economic landscape.
Chaired by Dr. Xiang Kai (Technology Strategist, ByteDance, PhD, Material Sciences, MIT, 2017)