This summary report captures the key takeaways from the Leading Edge Webinar on "Smart Cities and Urban Development," which showcased how cities are using digital technologies to tackle climate, health, and economic challenges. Drawing on MIT’s Senseable City Lab and Urban Network Analysis framework, the session highlighted people-centric, data-driven strategies that are making urban environments more sustainable, equitable, and resilient at every scale.
The birth of artificial-intelligence research as an autonomous discipline is generally thought to have been the month long Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence in 1956, which convened 10 leading electrical engineers — including MIT’s Marvin Minsky and Claude Shannon — to discuss “how to make machines use language” and “form abstractions and concepts.” A decade later, impressed by rapid advances in the design of digital computers, Minsky was emboldened to declare that “within a generation ... the problem of creating ‘artificial intelligence’ will substantially be solved.”
The problem, of course, turned out to be much more difficult than AI’s pioneers had imagined. In recent years, by exploiting machine learning — in which computers learn to perform tasks from sets of training examples — artificial-intelligence researchers have built special-purpose systems that can do things like interpret spoken language or play Atari games or drive cars using vision with great success.
But according to Tomaso Poggio, the Eugene McDermott Professor of Brain Sciences and Human Behavior at MIT, “These recent achievements have, ironically, underscored the limitations of computer science and artificial intelligence. We do not yet understand how the brain gives rise to intelligence, nor do we know how to build machines that are as broadly intelligent as we are.”
Poggio thinks that AI research needs to revive its early ambitions. “It’s time to try again,” he says. “We know much more than we did before about biological brains and how they produce intelligent behavior. We’re now at the point where we can start applying that understanding from neuroscience, cognitive science and computer science to the design of intelligent machines.”
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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.
Jose Chan, VP of Business Development, Celect Aaron Howell, Chief Customer Officer, Relativity6 Abhi Yadav, CEO & Founder, ZyloTech Jon Garrity, Founder & CEO, Tagup Rony Kubat, Co-Founder, Tulip Glynnis Kearney, VP of Product & Strategy, Gamalon Joshua Feast, Co-Founder & CEO, Cogito Vinayak Ranade, CEO, Drafted Kalpesh Sheth, Co-Founder & CEO, Yaxa Molly Bales, Chief Development Officer, Adappt Intelligence Aidan Cardella, SVP of Operations, TVision Matt Osman, CEO and Co-Founder, Legit Patents Anjali Midha, CEO and Co-Founder, Diesel Labs