Energy (and Other) Events is a weekly mailing list published most Sundays covering events around the Cambridge, MA and greater
Boston area that catch the editor's eye.
Hubevents http://hubevents.blogspot.com is the web version.
If you wish to subscribe or unsubscribe to Energy (and Other) Events email gmoke@world.std.com
What I Do and Why I Do It: The Story of Energy (and Other) Events
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Index
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Details of all these events are available when you scroll past the Index.
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Index
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Details of all these events are available when you scroll past the Index.
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Monday, March 27
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8:30am Keeping America Safe: Diplomacy and Defense in 2017
12pm Computation-driven design of molecular materials
12pm Which Social Cost of Carbon?
12:10pm Leaf-out in northern hemisphere woody plants — insights from experiments and herbaria
12:15pm Eco Swaraj: Can India’s Model of the Micro Transform Development for the 21st Century?
12:30pm Race and Policing: State and Local Perspectives
3pm PULSECHECK: The Future of Healthy Aging
4:15 Progressive Federalism: How State Attorneys General Are Fighting Travel Bans, Protecting Rights and Defending Democratic Institutions
5:15pm Poverty and Inequality: Societal and Psychological Costs
6pm Resisting Tyranny: Lessons from the European 20th Century
6pm Artist Talk @ Le Lab: Daniel Faust
7pm Connecting with the Enemy
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Tuesday, March 28
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9am Arts Matter Advocacy Day
11:30am Building Resilience: Economic Displacement & Climate Justice Symposium
12pm Speaker Series: Masha Gessen
12pm Virtual Competition: The Promise and Perils of the Algorithm-Driven Economy
12:30pm Tara Oceans: Eco-Systems Biology at Planetary Scale
2:15pm GERMANYforYou: Social Media Translates "Germany" for Refugees
4pm Connectography: Parag Khanna Talk
4:15pm Health and Urban Resilience: Understanding Health Equity in the City
5pm How To End Floods and Drought: Soaking Up the Rain, Cooling the Earth – a general introduction to The New Water Paradigm
5pm Biology and Climate Change
5pm Stamped from the Beginning: Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
5:30pm The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy
5:30pm Reimagining Refugee Solutions: An open house event with RefugePoint
5:30pm Technology and Global Affairs- A Public Address by Ashton B. Carter
6pm Make the World Think Again: Reason, Hope, and Faith in an Age of Populism - A Lecture by Tomas Halik
6pm Boston Green Drinks March Happy Hour with Environment Massachusetts
6:30pm Brahmin Capitalism: Frontiers of Wealth & Populism in America’s First Gilded Age
7pm The Grapes of Wrath
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Wednesday, March 29
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10am Networks and the Unintended Consequences of Communication
12pm Why Clean Energy Will Win: Technologies That Will Determine The Future
12:30pm Leadership: Daring to Fail - A Conversation with Steven Beshear, former Governor of Kentucky
12:30pm Lunchtime Lecture with Ancient Grains cookbook author Maria Speck
4pm Learning from the Past to Understand the Future of Ocean Ecosystems
4pm Addressing Complexity: Smallholder Farmers Facing Climate Risks in Sub-Saharan Africa
4:15pm Accelerator or Brake? Cash for Clunkers, Household Liquidity, and Aggregate Demand
5:30pm Connected Health: Emerging Technologies Poised to Make our Lives Better
5:30pm Farm Share Fair 2017
6pm Examining America’s Opioid Crisis
6pm ArtScience Talks @ Le Lab: Jennifer Zuk & Catherine Lewis
7pm Science Research Public Lecture: The Scientist as Sentinel
7pm The City Talks: Coexistence
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Thursday, March 30 - Saturday, April 1
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DigiFabCon
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Thursday, March 30
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11am Measurements and Advertising under Internet Censorship
12pm Just sustainabilities?: Social innovation and climate adaptation in Australia
1pm State of Advanced Energy: Markets, Trends, Jobs
1pm Back to the Future: Designing the Monsanto House of the Future for Disneyland in the 1950s
4pm Theatre as a Form of Resistance to Oppression and Genocide
5pm The Science of Human Collective Behavior Using Twitter
6pm Beyond The Battery: The Software Side of Energy Storage
6:30pm Science by the Pint: What brain connectivity reveals about music, language, and creativity
6:30pm Demo+Discuss Tech/Science to Expand Consciousness via Contemplative Practice
7pm Invasive Species and Carbon Cycling in Coastal Dunes of Cape Cod
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Friday, March 31
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8:30am Experimental Evolution with Pesticides on Host-Microbiome Phenotypes
9am Babson Energy & Environment Conference: Zero Waste Challenge
9am Conversations: new frameworks for public discourse
12pm Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization
12:45pm Incorporating climate projections in health impact studies
2pm Getting to the Point with Senator Bernie Sanders
5:30pm Public Banking and Our Common Wealth
6:30pm Mexico City at a Crossroads: Designing an Urban Future in the Era of Climate Change
7pm Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean
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Saturday, April 1
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8:30am Just Food? Forum on Labor Across the Food System
10am Data for Democracy Hackathon - Boston
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Monday, April 3, 2017 at 12:00 PM to Tuesday, April 4, 2017 at 5:30 PM (EDT)
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ZOFNASS PROGRAM WORKSHOP: BUSINESS CASE FOR SUSTAINABLE INFRASTRUCTURE
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Monday, April 3
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8am Finance, Geography, and Sustainability: Workshop Day One
12pm System Effects Mapping as a Tool for Environmental Policy & Planning
12pm U.S. Natural Gas Market Evolution
5pm The Future of Food: Climate, Crops, and Consequences
5:30pm Joi Ito in discussion with Robert Langer, Whiplash
5:30pm Conversations on Civic Innovation: Impact of New Media on Civic Initiatives
6pm Imagine Boston 2030 Master Plan
6pm The Age of Reason Got it Wrong: Understanding Social Conflict Through a Brain Science Lens
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Tuesday, April 4
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12pm Algorithmic Consumers
12:30pm CDD Forum: Conscripting Climate: Environmental Risk and Defensive Urbanism
5pm Can technology unlock 'unburnable carbon’?
6pm Consumerism Meets Minimalism: Can We Live More with Less?
6pm ProfDev: Advocacy in the Time of Trump - Moving Beyond Tactics
6:30pm Erik Swyngedouw, “Insurgent Architects and the Spectral Return of the Political in the Post-Democratic City”
6:30pm The Reality of CO2’s Influence on Sea-Level and Weather Events - GBTP Boston
7pm Ida Auken, the former Minister for the Environment in Denmark, to lead a discussion on changing environmental policies and politics
7pm Seed: The Untold Story
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My rough notes on some of the events I go to and notes on books I’ve read are at:
Book of Ages: Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin
For Jimmy Breslin: Notes on The Good Rat
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Monday, March 27
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Keeping America Safe: Diplomacy and Defense in 2017
WHEN Monday, Mar. 27, 2017, 8:30 – 10 a.m.
WHERE Harvard, Taubman Building, Darman Seminar Room, First Floor,, 15 Eliot Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Classes/Workshops, Law, Lecture, Social Sciences, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Future of Diplomacy Project
SPEAKER(S) Congressman Seth Moulton (MA-D 6)
DETAILS Congressman Seth Moulton, Representative of the Sixth District of Massachusetts, will join the Future of of Diplomacy Project to speak about Congressional efforts to craft an effective national policy that addresses interlocking security issues. Nicholas Burns, Goodman Family Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Politics.
Breakfast will be available.
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Computation-driven design of molecular materials
Monday, March 27
12:00pm to 1:00pm
Harvard, Pierce Hall 209, 29 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Rafael Gómez- Bombarelli
Many of the challenges we face as a society are related to finding optimal materials in areas such as energy and sustainability, healthcare, transportation, foodstuffs, .... Software-based approaches offer an unprecedented way to accelerate and improve how we design and deploy new materials. Through artificial intelligence we can leverage larger than ever experimental and theoretical datasets to find unexpected patterns and to generate novel ideas. Atomistic simulations have never been faster or more accurate and we are now enabled to routinely carry out virtual searches over large spaces of candidate materials in a predictive way.
Here, I will report how we have combined machine learning and quantum chemical simulations with experimental intuition to discover and fabricate novel practical molecular materials. I will report work in the discovery of organic light-emitting diodes for displays and lighting, organic electrolytes for electrical energy storage and dyes for novel solar cells. In addition, I will discuss recent results in the application of deep learning techniques to perform automatic chemical design through a learned continuous representation of molecules.
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Which Social Cost of Carbon?
Monday, March 27
12:00PM TO 1:30PM
Harvard, Bell Hall, 5th Floor, Belfer Building, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
Matthew Kotchen, Professor of Economics, Yale University
Lunch is provided.
Energy Policy Seminar
Contact Name: Louisa Lund
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Leaf-out in northern hemisphere woody plants — insights from experiments and herbaria
Monday, March 27
12:10PM
Arnold Arboretum, Weld Hill Lecture Hall, 1300 Centre Street, Boston
Susanne Renner, Professor and Chair, Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, will give a talk on "."
Arnold Arboretum Research Talk
Contact Name: arbweb@arnarb.harvard.edu
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Eco Swaraj: Can India’s Model of the Micro Transform Development for the 21st Century?
Monday, March 27
12:15PM TO 2:00PM
Harvard, K262, Bowie-Vernon Room, CGIS, 1737 Cambridge St., Cambridge
with Meera Subramanian (MIT, Knight Science Journalism Fellow).
The STS Circle at Harvard is a group of doctoral students and recent PhDs who are interested in creating a space for interdisciplinary conversations about contemporary issues in science and technology that are relevant to people in fields such as anthropology, history of science, sociology, STS, law, government, public policy, and the natural sciences. We want to engage not only those who are working on intersections of science, politics, and public policy, but also those in the natural sciences, engineering, and architecture who have serious interest in exploring these areas together with social scientists and humanists.
There has been growing interest among graduate students and postdocs at Harvard in more systematic discussions related to STS. More and more dissertation writers and recent graduates find themselves working on exciting topics that intersect with STS at the edges of their respective home disciplines, and they are asking questions that often require new analytic tools that the conventional disciplines don’t necessarily offer. They would also like wider exposure to emerging STS scholarship that is not well-represented or organized at most universities, including Harvard. Our aim is to try to serve those interests through a series of activities throughout the academic year.
Sandwich lunch is provided. RSVP required.
The Harvard STS Circle is co-sponsored by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
STS Circle at Harvard
Contact Name: Shana Ashar
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Race and Policing: State and Local Perspectives
WHEN Monday, Mar. 27, 2017, 12:30 – 1:30 p.m.
WHERE Leadership Studio, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR The Forum at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
SPEAKER(S) EXPERT PARTICIPANTS
Brian Corr, President, National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement
Tracey Meares, Professor of Law, Yale Law School, and Senior Research Advisor, National Network for Safe Communities, John Jay College of Criminal Justice
John Shanks, Director, Police Training Institute
David Williams, Professor of Public Health, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
MODERATOR
Phillip Martin, Senior Investigative Reporter, WGBH News
TICKET INFO RSVP to ATTEND: theforum@hsph.harvard.edu
DETAILS Building on two previous Forums about race, criminal justice and health [link to theforum.sph.harvard.edu…], this event will examine specific approaches and models to address the complexities of race and policing. Experts in law enforcement, public health, community relations and the law will speak. Subjects will include safeguarding law enforcement and communities, promoting more effective communication and de-escalation techniques, and narrowing the social, economic and health gaps that persist between underserved and middle-class America. The emphasis will be on local and state approaches.
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PULSECHECK: The Future of Healthy Aging
Monday, March 27
3:00 PM – 5:00 PM EDT
Hatch Fenway, 401 Park Drive, 8th Floor East Elevators, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/rescheduled-pulsecheck-the-future-of-healthy-aging-tickets-32851119583
We believe digital health is going to have a drastic effect on the future of aging.
Join us for our March #PULSECHECK in partnership with AARPand the Massachusetts eHealth Institute as we explore the topic of Healthy Aging featuring special guest, Secretary of Elder Affairs Alice Bonner. There will be a panel discussion discerning how technology is driving the future of elderly affairs and need the audience's engagement!
Our Panel:
Alice Bonner, Secretary of Elder Affairs for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Charlotte Yeh, Chief Medical Officer at AARP
Rebecca Love, Director of Nurse Innovations at Northeastern
Moderated by Laurance Stuntz, Director of Massachusetts eHealth Institute
Innovation Showcase:
Startups will present their aging solutions in a showcase involving members of the PULSE cohort and digital health entrepreneurs from the community. You will have an exclusive chance to see the future of aging today.
Startups:
Emerald Innovations
MeetCareGivers
Neuroelectrics
OnKol
Rendever
VRPhysio
Community:
StartHub
Commonwealth of MA
Space is limited, RSVP now!
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Progressive Federalism: How State Attorneys General Are Fighting Travel Bans, Protecting Rights and Defending Democratic Institutions
WHEN Monday, Mar. 27, 2017, 4:15 – 5:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Allison Dining Room, 5th Floor Taubman Building, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation
SPEAKER(S) George Jepsen, Connecticut Attorney General; James Tierney, Lecturer in Law, Harvard Law School, Former Maine Attorney General; Sarah Wald, Moderator, Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, Former Assistant Attorney General, Massachusetts; and Archon Fung, Ford Foundation Professor of Democracy and Citizenship, Academic Dean, HKS.
COST Free
LINK http://ash.harvard.edu/event/progressive-federalism-case-study-state-responses-trump-travel-ban
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Poverty and Inequality: Societal and Psychological Costs
WHEN Monday, Mar. 27, 2017, 5:15 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Austin Hall 100, 1515 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Education, Ethics, Health Sciences, Humanities, Lecture, Science, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Mind Brain Behavior Interfaculty Initiative
SPEAKER(S) Panelists: Orlando Patterson, Charles Nelson, Dana McCoy, Todd Grindal.
Moderator: Ronald Ferguson
DETAILS Poverty, we often hear it discussed as a societal concern, but how well do we really understand the implications. Is all poverty the same or are there subcultures of which we should be aware? What are the effects of poverty on brain development and long-term outcomes? Where is our best hope for intervention? Join us as we take a deep dive into the cultural and psychological impacts of poverty.
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Resisting Tyranny: Lessons from the European 20th Century
WHEN Monday, Mar. 27, 2017, 6 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Malkin Penthouse, Littauer Building 4th Floor, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation
SPEAKER(S) Timothy Snyder, Bird White Housum Professor of History, Yale.
DETAILS Join Timothy Snyder, Bird White Housum Professor of History, Yale, as he discusses the historical lessons learned from anti-authoritarian movements in 20th century Europe. Moshik Temkin, Associate Professor of History and Public Policy, HKS, will moderate the event.
About the Speaker
Timothy Snyder is the Bird White Housum Professor of History at Yale University, specializing in the history of central and eastern Europe. Born in 1969 in southwestern Ohio and a graduate of Centerville High School, he received his B.A. from Brown University and his doctorate from the University of Oxford, where he was a British Marshall Scholar at Balliol College. He has also held fellowships in Paris, Warsaw, and at Harvard, where he was an Academy Scholar. A frequent guest at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, he has spent about ten years in Europe. He speaks five and reads ten European languages.
Among his publications are five award-winning books, all of which have been translated: Nationalism, Marxism, and Modern Central Europe: A Biography of Kazimierz Kelles- Krauz (1998); The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, 1569-1999 (2003); Sketches from a Secret War: A Polish Artist’s Mission to Liberate Soviet Ukraine (2005); The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke (2008); and Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2010). Bloodlands has won ten awards including the Emerson Prize in the Humanities, a Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Leipzig Award for European Understanding. It has been translated into twenty-five languages, was named to twelve book-of-the-year lists, and was a bestseller in four countries. Most recently Snyder helped the late Tony Judt compose a thematic intellectual history, entitled Thinking the Twentieth Century (2012), which is appearing in fourteen translations. Snyder is also the coeditor of two volumes: Wall Around the West: State Borders and Immigration Controls in Europe and North America (2000) and Stalinism and Europe: Terror, War, Domination, (2014). He is at work on four books: a study of the Holocaust, a biography of Marx, a global history of eastern Europe, and a family history of nationalism. His scholarly articles have appeared in Past and Present, the Journal of Cold War Studies, and a number of other journals; he has also written for The New York Review of Books, Foreign Affairs, The Times Literary Supplement, The Nation, and The New Republic as well as for The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, and other newspapers. He takes regular part in conferences on Holocaust education and sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of Modern European History and East European Politics and Societies. He is a member of the Committee on Conscience of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and sits on the advisory councils of the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research, the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, and other organizations.
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Artist Talk @ Le Lab: Daniel Faust
Monday, March 27
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM EDT
Le Laboratoire Cambridge, 650 East Kendall Street, Cambridge
Silicon
Artist Talk > Life in Picoseconds
Doors/Talk > 6:00pm/6:30pm
Cost > FREE
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Connecting with the Enemy
Monday, March 27
7:00pm
Porter Square Books, 25 White Street, Cambridge
Thousands of ordinary people in Israel and Palestine have engaged in a dazzling array of daring and visionary joint nonviolent initiatives for more than a century. They have endured despite condemnation by their own societies, repetitive failures of diplomacy, harsh inequalities, and endemic cycles of violence.
Connecting with the Enemy presents the first comprehensive history of unprecedented grassroots efforts to forge nonviolent alternatives to the lethal collision of the two national movements. Bringing to light the work of over five hundred groups, Sheila H. Katz describes how Arabs and Jews, children and elders, artists and activists, educators and students, garage mechanics and physicists, and lawyers and prisoners have spoken truth to power, protected the environment, demonstrated peacefully, mourned together, stood in resistance and solidarity, and advocated for justice and security. She also critiques and assesses the significance of their work and explores why these good-will efforts have not yet managed to end the conflict or occupation. This previously untold story of Palestinian-Israeli joint nonviolence will challenge the mainstream narratives of terror and despair, monsters and heroes, that help to perpetuate the conflict. It will also inspire and encourage anyone grappling with social change, peace and war, oppression and inequality, and grassroots activism anywhere in the world.
Sheila H. Katz, Ph.D, is the author of Connecting with the Enemy: a Century of Palestinian-Israeli Joint Nonviolence. She received a doctorate in Middle East History from Harvard University where she specialized in Palestinian-Israeli relations, organized programs on Middle Eastern women, and taught for eight years.
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Tuesday, March 28
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Arts Matter Advocacy Day
Tuesday, March 28
9:00 am – 2:00 pm
Paramount Center Boston and the State House, 559 Washington Street, Boston
ARTS MARCH/RALLY
On March 28, MASSCreative will bring together the creative community for Arts Matter Advocacy Day to show our state political leaders that arts matter in Massachusetts.
Join us for a morning at the Paramount Center in downtown Boston and an early afternoon at the State House. After a morning of mingling, celebrating arts & culture, and sharpening our advocacy skills at the Paramount, we will travel together in an ‘Arts Matter March’ to the State House. When we arrive, we will meet with our legislators about arts and cultural issues, including the state budget. Together, let’s send the message: arts matter in Massachusetts.
Check back soon for the full agenda, including speakers and performers.
Help make sure Arts Matter Advocacy Day is representative of the broad arts and cultural community. Become a Arts Matter Advocacy Partner and check out our Arts Matter Advocacy Day Toolkit for outreach materials.
Mass Creatives
617-350-7610
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Building Resilience: Economic Displacement & Climate Justice Symposium
Tuesday, March 28
11:30 AM – 4:00 PM EDT
UMass Boston. 100 Morrissey Boulevard. Boston
Join UMass Boston's Sustainable Solutions Lab, CANALA Institutes and Office of Community Partnerships for a symposium on economic and climate displacement.
Climate change will increase the pressures on Boston residents, especially those struggling to make ends meet. The current housing crisis in Boston is one glaring example of this challenge. Already Boston residents are being forced out of their homes.
What will happen when parts of the city begin to flood regularly and are no longer inhabitable? How will new requirements to purchase flood insurance impact family budgets? Can initiatives like community land trusts and just cause eviction protections stabilize neighborhoods in the face of these pressures?
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Speaker Series: Masha Gessen
Tuesday, March 28
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Harvard, Bell Hall, Belfer Building, 5th floor, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
Masha Gessen is a Russian and American journalist, the author of ten books of nonfiction, including the 2012 bestseller The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin and, most recently, The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia (coming from Riverhead in October). She is a contributing opinion writer to The New York Times and a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books as well as Harper’s, The New Yorker, and other publications. She has been a Nieman Fellow and a Carnegie Millennial Fellow, among other awards and honors. She serves as vice president of PEN America. She has spent most of her life living in Moscow, but now makes her home in New York City.
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Virtual Competition: The Promise and Perils of the Algorithm-Driven Economy
Tuesday, March 28
12:00 pm
Harvard, Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East C (Room 2036, second floor), 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP required to attend in person at https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheons/2017/03/Stucke#RSVP
Event will be live webcast at https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheons/2017/03/Stucke at 12:00 pm
Please join Maurice Stucke for a discussion of their book, Virtual Competition: The Promise and Perils of the Algorithm-Driven Economy.
Shoppers with Internet access and a bargain-hunting impulse can find a universe of products at their fingertips. In this thought-provoking exposé, Maurice Stucke and Ariel Ezrachi invite us to take a harder look at today’s app-assisted paradise of digital shopping. While consumers reap many benefits from online purchasing, the sophisticated algorithms and data-crunching that make browsing so convenient are also changing the nature of market competition, and not always for the better.
Computers colluding is one danger. Although long-standing laws prevent companies from fixing prices, data-driven algorithms can now quickly monitor competitors’ prices and adjust their own prices accordingly. So what is seemingly beneficial—increased price transparency—ironically can end up harming consumers. A second danger is behavioral discrimination. Here, companies track and profile consumers to get them to buy goods at the highest price they are willing to pay. The rise of super-platforms and their “frenemy” relationship with independent app developers raises a third danger. By controlling key platforms (such as the operating system of smartphones), data-driven monopolies dictate the flow of personal data and determine who gets to exploit potential buyers.
Virtual Competition raises timely questions. To what extent does the “invisible hand” still hold sway? In markets continually manipulated by bots and algorithms, is competitive pricing an illusion? Can our current laws protect consumers? The changing market reality is already shifting power into the hands of the few. Ezrachi and Stucke explore the resulting risks to competition, our democratic ideals, and our economic and overall well-being.
About Maurice
Professor Stucke brought 13 years of litigation experience when he joined the UT College of Law faculty in 2007. As a trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, he successfully challenged anticompetitive mergers and restraints in numerous industries, and focused on policy issues involving antitrust and the media. As a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney, he prosecuted a variety of felony and misdemeanor offenses, including running a weekly docket before the Honorable Thomas Rawles Jones, Jr. As an associate at Sullivan & Cromwell, Professor Stucke assisted in defending Goldman Sachs, CS First Boston, and Microsoft in civil antitrust litigation. The Legal Aid Society presented him two awards for his criminal appellate and defense work.
Since coming to UT, Professor Stucke has been a prolific legal scholar. His scholarship re-examines much of the conventional wisdom in competition policy in light of the empirical findings from behavioral economics and psychology. In re-evaluating the goals and assumptions of competition law, he seeks to provide policymakers with a more empirical approach to competition policy. Professor Stucke’s scholarship, which has been cited by the U.S. federal courts, the OECD, the United Nations, competition agencies and policymakers, is already impacting competition policy. He was invited by the OECD and competition authorities from the European Union, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, South Korea, United States, and United Kingdom to discuss his research, and has been invited to present his research at over 60 conferences in Australia, Belgium, China, England, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom, and United States.
Professor Stucke serves as a Senior Fellow at the American Antitrust Institute, an independent Washington, D.C.-based non-profit education, research, and advocacy organization devoted to competition policy. Professor Stucke chaired a committee on the media industry that drafted a transition report for the incoming Obama administration. In 2009, Professor Stucke was elected as a member to the Academic Society for Competition Law, appointed to the advisory board of the Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies, and was asked to serve as one of the United States’ non-governmental advisors to the International Competition Network, the only international body devoted exclusively to competition law enforcement and whose members represent national and multinational governmental competition authorities in over 100 jurisdictions.
He has co-authored two books, Big Data and Competition Policy (Oxford University Press 2016) and Virtual Competition (Harvard University Press 2016), which has been featured in The New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, Guardian, New York Review of Books, Harvard Business Review, and Wired.
Professor Stucke received a Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture in 2010-2011 in the People’s Republic of China. He also received several awards for his scholarship, including the Carden Award for Outstanding Scholarship, the 2016 Antitrust Writing Award by Concurrences Review and George Washington University, the Jerry S. Cohen Memorial Award, presented annually for the best antitrust scholarship, the College’s W. Allen Separk Faculty Scholarship Award, the Marilyn V. Yarbrough Award for Writing Excellence, and the Chancellor’s Honors Award for Research and Creative Achievement—Professional Promise.
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Tara Oceans: Eco-Systems Biology at Planetary Scale
Tuesday, March 28
12:30p–1:30p
MIT, Building 48-316, Parsons Lab, 15 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Chris Bowler, Institut de Biologie de l'Ecole Normale Superieure (IBENS)
Microbial Systems Seminar
Web site: microbialsystems.wordpress.com
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Civil and Environmental Engineering
For more information, contact: Kathryn Kauffman
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GERMANYforYou: Social Media Translates "Germany" for Refugees
WHEN Tuesday, Mar. 28, 2017, 2:15 – 4:15 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Adolphus Busch Hall at Cabot Way, Lower Level Conference Room, 27 Kirkland Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Contemporary Europe Study Group co-sponsored by Nieman Foundation for Journalism, Harvard University
SPEAKER(S) Isabel Schayani, Project Leader, WDRforyou, Moderated by: Georg Diez, Reporter and Columnist, Politics and Culture, Der Speigel
CONTACT INFO Colin Brown, brown4@fas.harvard.edu
DETAILS Isabel Schayani will describe her experiences founding, organizing and editing WDRforyou, a social media- and web-based platform to bring news about Germany to new refugees and other recent arrivals. The network, which provides news in German, English, Arabic and Farsi/Dari, also helps create context about Germany so that refugees and asylum seekers have a better chance of understanding the country and people around them. Schayani will explore what WDRforyou and other social media channels tell us about the future of refugee and immigrant integration, as well as what the refugee crisis has taught us about the potential of new media platforms.
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Connectography: Parag Khanna Talk
Tuesday, March 28
4:00pm — 5:00pm
MIT, Building E14 - 633, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Abstract: "Governing a Connected World"
We’re accelerating into a future shaped less by countries than by connectivity. Mankind has a new maxim – Connectivity is destiny – and the most connected powers, and people, will win. Drawing on his 2016 book Connectography, Dr. Khanna will trace the infrastructures and supply chains that form the backbone of our emerging global network civilization and explain how 21st century conflict is a tug-of-war over pipelines and Internet cables, advanced technologies and market access. What kind of government is best suited to governing such a complex world? Sharing insights from his latest book Technocracy in America, Dr. Khanna will sketch out administrative structures that are best suited to blending democracy and data to deliver better governance.
Bio: Parag Khanna is a is a senior research fellow in the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. Parag's latest book is Technocracy in America: Rise of the Info-State (2017). He is author of a trilogy of books on the future of world order beginning with The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order (2008), followed by How to Run the World: Charting a Course to the Next Renaissance (2011), and concluding with Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization (2016). He is also co-author of Hybrid Reality: Thriving in the Emerging Human-Technology Civilization (2012). In 2008, Parag was named one of Esquire’s “75 Most Influential People of the 21st Century,” and featured in WIRED magazine’s “Smart List.” He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics, and Bachelors and Masters degrees from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum.
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Health and Urban Resilience: Understanding Health Equity in the City
WHEN Tuesday, Mar. 28, 2017, 4:15 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, 124 Mt Auburn Street, Suite 200N, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation
SPEAKER(S) Jason Corburn, a Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning and School of Public Health at UC Berkeley
COST Free and open to the public
DETAILS You are invited to a discussion with Jason Corburn, a Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning and School of Public Health at UC Berkeley. He directs the Institute of Urban and Regional Development and the Center for Global Healthy Cities.
Cities can be the ‘start-up’s for a new urban politics in America that transforms entrenched divisions based on race, immigration status and economic inequalities. In the San Francisco Bay Area, the City of Richmond, CA, passed the first Health in All Policies (HiAP) Ordinance in the US. By making health equity a priority, community activists and government innovators transformed the city from one of the most violent and unequal in the Bay Area, to one of the region’s healthiest cities. This talk will explore the factors, social movements and government innovations that enabled this transformation and the important role of health equity, racial justice and place-based experiments.
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How To End Floods and Drought: Soaking Up the Rain, Cooling the Earth – a general introduction to The New Water Paradigm
Tuesday, March 28
5:00PM
Harvard, Haller Hall (100), 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Biodiversity for a Livable Climate welcomes Michal Kravčík, a hydrologist and climate expert from Slovakia and recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize. Kravčík has an urgent message for America as well as the rest of the globe: All of us, not just the “experts,” must take action by soaking up the rain in soil and plants, which releases cooling cloud-forming vapor to fall again as rain and restores critical land-based water cycles. Otherwise, we will experience worsening drought, heat waves and other climate woes, including floods and severe storms. Dr. Kravčík is a seasoned world lecturer who will be touring North America in March and April 2017, presenting natural, inexpensive solutions for restoring more livable landscapes and weather patterns. For anyone, lay or professional, concerned about water supplies, land use, or climate, this will be time well spent.
Biodiversity for a Livable Climate was founded in 2013 by Jim Laurie, Karl Thidemann, Helen D. Silver, Jane Hammer and Adam Sacks. We saw an urgent need to expand the climate conversation to include the seriously underestimated positive impacts of the biosphere on the climate and physical world. We see how appropriate human approaches to nature may be able to reverse the effects of global warming despite our inability to date to reduce emissions in a timely manner. Our goal is to contribute to planetary regeneration through research, education, collaboration and action to restore essential global biodiversity.
Contact Name: Paula Phipps
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Biology and Climate Change
Tuesday, March 28
5:00 – 6:30 pm (reception to follow)
BU, Metcalf Trustee Center,1 Silber Way, 9th Floor, Boston
Prof. Thomas E. Lovejoy is an innovative and accomplished conservation biologist who coined the term “biological diversity”. He serves as Senior Fellow at the United Nations Foundation. In 2010 he was elected University Professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at George Mason University. He served as President of the Heinz Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment from 2002-2008 and was the Biodiversity Chair of the Center from 2008-2013. Before assuming this position, Lovejoy was the World Bank’s Chief Biodiversity Advisor and Lead Specialist for Environment for Latin America and the Caribbean as well as Senior Advisor to the President of the United Nations Foundation.
Spanning the political spectrum, Lovejoy has served on science and environmental councils under the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations. At the core of these many influential positions are Lovejoy’s seminal ideas, which have formed and strengthened the field of conservation biology. He was the first to use the term “biological diversity” in 1980. In the 1980s, he brought international attention to the world’s tropical rainforests, and in particular, the Brazilian Amazon, where he has worked since 1965. In 1980, he produced the first projection of global extinctions for the Global 2000 Report to the President. Lovejoy also developed the now ubiquitous “debt-for-nature” swap programs and led the Minimum Critical Size of Ecosystems project.
With two co-edited books (1992 and 2005), he is credited with founding the field of climate change biology. He and Lee Hannah are working on the Second Edition of Climate Change and Biodiversity. He also founded the series Nature, the popular long-term series on public television. In 2001, Lovejoy was awarded the prestigious Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement. In 2009 he was the winner of BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in the Ecology and Conservation Biology Category. In 2009 he was appointed Conservation Fellow by the National Geographic. In 2012 he was recognized by the Blue Planet Prize. Lovejoy holds B.S. and Ph.D (biology) degrees from Yale University.
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Stamped from the Beginning: Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Tuesday, March 28
5:00 PM – 7:00 PM EDT
BU, George Sherman Union Conference Auditorium, 775 Commonwealth Avenue, 2nd Floor, Boston
Ibram X. Kendi is a New York Times best-selling author and award-winning historian at the University of Florida. His second book, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America won the 2016 National Book Award for Nonfiction and was recently named a finalist for the 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award. Described as “engrossing and relentless” by The Washington Post, Stamped has named to Best Books of 2016 lists in the Boston Globe, Kirkus, The Root, Chicago Review of Books, and Buzzfeed. Stamped has also been nominated for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Nonfiction.
Kendi is also the author of the award-winning book, The Black Campus Movement: Black Students and the Racial Reconstitution of Higher Education, 1965-1972. He has published fourteen essays in journals and books, as well as many op-eds in a number of publications, including The New York Times, Salon, Black Perspectives, New York Daily News, The Huffington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and TruthOut. He has received research fellowships, grants, and visiting appointments from a variety of universities, foundations, professional associations, and libraries, including the American Historical Association, Library of Congress, National Academy of Education, Spencer Foundation, Lyndon B. Johnson Library & Museum, Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis, Brown University, Princeton University, and Duke University. A graduate of Florida A&M University and Temple University, Kendi lives in Gainesville, Florida.
This is part of the "Conversatuons on Race" at Boston University sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences and the Office of the President at Boston University.
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The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy
Tuesday, March 28
5:30p–6:30p
MIT, Building N50, 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Peter Temin
The MIT Press Bookstore presents Peter Temin, Professor of Economics Emeritus at MIT and author of The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy (MIT Press) at 5:30 pm on Tuesday, February 28, at the Bookstore.
In "The Vanishing Middle Class," Peter Temin argues that American history and politics, particularly slavery and its aftermath, play an important part in the widening gap between rich and poor and outlines ways to work toward greater equality so that America will no longer have one economy for the rich and one for the poor.
This event includes a book signing. Books will be on sale at the event for 20% off, or you can purchase an event ticket that includes a discounted book.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): The MIT Press Bookstore
For more information, contact: The MIT Press Bookstore
617-253-5249
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Reimagining Refugee Solutions: An open house event with RefugePoint
Tuesday, March 28
5:30 PM – 6:30 PM EDT
RefugePoint HQ, 689 Massachusetts Avenue, 2nd Floor, Cambridge
Every day, we read in the news troubling stories of refugees and wonder what we can do to help. Even in the midst of refugee bans and dangerous journeys, we can all do something to help refugees resume normal lives.
During this unprecedented global refugee crisis, we know that more than 23 million refugees are living in limbo waiting for a chance to resume normal lives. Most refugees will wait a very long time for this; the average time someone stays a refugee is 17 years. There is a clear need to shift the public perception of refugees and provide better futures for many whose lives are on hold and in danger.
Come visit us at RefugePoint for a casual open house and a short presentation about the emerging needs of refugees. Join us (and invite a friend!) to learn about the refugee crisis and about how we can help refugees improve their own lives. We will discuss new solutions in humanitarian response that help refugees build self-reliance. We will also share stories of refugees who are facing urgent dangers with suspension of refugee resettlement to the US.
About RefugePoint: RefugePoint is a local Cambridge based nonprofit recognized widely for our innovative efforts in refugee work. We provide lasting solutions for the world’s most at-risk refugees. We have referred over 37,000 refugees for resettlement to new countries since 2005. We identify and protect refugees who have fallen through the cracks of humanitarian assistance and have no other options for survival.
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Technology and Global Affairs- A Public Address by Ashton B. Carter
WHEN Tuesday, Mar. 28, 2017, 5:30 – 6:45 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, JFK Jr. Forum, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Education, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR JFK Jr. Forum
Institute of Politics
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
SPEAKER(S) Ashton B. Carter, Former U.S. Secretary of Defense
Graham Allison (Moderator), Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Douglas Dillon Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School
Welcome by Douglas Elmendorf, Dean and Don K. Price Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
CONTACT INFO JFK Jr. Forum Office
617-495-1380
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Make the World Think Again: Reason, Hope, and Faith in an Age of Populism - A Lecture by Tomas Halik
Tuesday, March 28
6:00 pm to 7:30 pm
BU, School of Law, Barristers’ Hall, 765 Commonwealth Avenue
Almost three decades ago the people of Central and Eastern Europe celebrated the fall of communism and the return of democracy. Today, confidence in liberal democracy is eroding. In Europe, the United States, and indeed, around the world, civil discourse is giving way to the emotional authoritarian rhetoric of populists and nationalists. The post-communist countries of Europe offer an important lens through which to study the reasons for this trend and to to explore how we might rebuild the cultural and moral biosphere of democracy.
Tomas Halik worked in Czechoslovakia during the Communist era as a secretly ordained priest in the underground Church. After 1989 he became an adviser to President Vaclav Havel. Today he is a professor of sociology at Charles University in Prague, laureate of the 2014 Templeton Prize, a member of the European Society of Arts and Sciences, and vice president of the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy. He has lectured at universities on five continents, and his books have been translated into 18 languages. Pope John Paul II appointed him advisor to the Pontifical Council for Dialogue with Non-Believers and Pope Benedict XVI granted him the title of Monsignor - Honorary Prelate of His Holiness. Last year, Oxford university awarded him an honorary doctorate in Divinity.
This event takes place as part of a new initiative entitled "Interferences," a series of events on issues pertinent to democratic politics in the US and Europe. Organized as part of EU Futures, a series of conversations exploring the emerging future in Europe. The EU Futures project is supported by a Getting to Know Europe Grant from the European Commission Delegation in Washington, DC.
Contact Name Elizabeth Amrien
Contact Email adamrien@bu.edu
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Boston Green Drinks March Happy Hour with Environment Massachusetts
Tuesday, March 28
6:00 PM to 8:00 PM (EDT)
Scholars, 25 School Street, Boston
All sustainability enthusiasts are welcome but this month we will feature Environment Massachusetts, which will connect solar energy professionals with activists working for a clean energy future. Join the conversation with solar and sustainability professionals and hobbyists and pick the brains of the area's solar policy-makers. Enjoy a drink, take action to help solar grow, and build your connection with our green community.
Boston Green Drinks builds a community of sustainably-minded Bostonians, provides a forum for exchange of sustainability career resources, and serves as a central point of information about emerging green issues. We support the exchange of ideas and resources about sustainable energy, environment, food, health, education.
Environment Massachusetts is a statewide, citizen-funded environmental advocacy organization working for a cleaner, greener, healthier future.
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Brahmin Capitalism: Frontiers of Wealth & Populism in America’s First Gilded Age
Tuesday, March 28
6:30 PM to 8:00 PM
Boston Public Library, Central Library, Commonwealth Saloon, 700 Boylston Street, Boston
Noam Maggor, author of Brahmin Capitalism: Frontiers of Wealth and Populism in America’s First Gilded Age
Noam Maggor’s history of the Gilded Age explores how the moneyed elite in Boston―the quintessential East Coast establishment―leveraged their wealth to forge transcontinental networks of commodities, labor, and transportation. With the decline of cotton-based textile manufacturing in New England and the abolition of slavery, these gentlemen bankers traveled far and wide in search of new business opportunities and found them in the mines, railroads, and industries of the Great West.
Maggor is currently a postdoctoral associate and visiting lecturer in the Department of History at Cornell University. He was previously a Charles Warren Center Fellow at Harvard University, Thomas Arthur Arnold Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Historical Studies at Tel Aviv University, and a senior lecturer in the Department of History at Vanderbilt University.
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The Grapes of Wrath
Tuesday, March 28
7pm
Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard Street, Brookline
Presented as part of the National Evening of Science on Screen.
John Ford's (Stagecoach, The Searchers) Oscar-winning adaptation of John Steinbeck's groundbreaking novel is the tale of American determination in the face panic, poverty, and desolation. With nuanced performances from Henry Fonda (The Lady Eve, 12 Angry Men) and Jane Darwell (Gone with the Wind, Mary Poppins), The Grapes of Wrath is a stunning portrait of one family's hopeful journey across the ruined landscapes of depression-era America.
During an introduction and post-screening Q&A, Bill McKibben, award-winning author and environmentalist, will use the 1940 film as a springboard to discuss the science of climate change and the global implications of our warming world.
About the Speaker
Bill McKibben is an author and environmentalist who in 2014 was awarded the Right Livelihood Prize, sometimes called the ‘alternative Nobel.’ His 1989 book The End of Nature is regarded as the first book for a general audience about climate change, and has appeared in 24 languages; he’s gone on to write a dozen more books. He is a founder of 350.org, the first planet-wide, grassroots climate change movement, which has organized twenty thousand rallies around the world in every country save North Korea, spearheaded the resistance to the Keystone Pipeline, and launched the fast-growing fossil fuel divestment movement.
The Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he was the 2013 winner of the Gandhi Prize and the Thomas Merton Prize, and holds honorary degrees from 18 colleges and universities. Foreign Policy named him to their inaugural list of the world’s 100 most important global thinkers, and The Boston Globe said he was “probably America’s most important environmentalist.”
A former staff writer for The New Yorker, he writes frequently for a wide variety of publications around the world, including the New York Review of Books, National Geographic, and Rolling Stone. He lives in the mountains above Lake Champlain with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern, where he spends as much time as possible outdoors. In 2014, biologists honored him by naming a new species of woodland gnat — Megophthalmidia mckibbeni — in his honor.
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Wednesday, March 29
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Networks and the Unintended Consequences of Communication
Wednesday, March 29
10:00 am
Northeastern, 177 Huntington Avenue, 11th floor, Boston
SANDRA GONZÁLEZ-BAILÓN, Assistant Professor, Annenberg School for Communication, UPenn
Why does human action trigger unintended effects? This question has intrigued social scientists for decades – and only now, with the help of network science, have we began to unravel the forces that set those chain reactions in motion. The unintended consequences of human action take many forms and are captured by many metaphors: from self-fulfilling prophecies to cumulative effects; from negative feedback loops to virtuous circles. Communication networks pulsate at the heart of all these processes of change. Digital technologies, with their trove of data and tools, allow us to tap into those networks, and solve the puzzle of why our actions generate outcomes that we did not intend or envision. This talk will offer an account of the progress made in recent decades, and dive into the details of my own research, which aims to illuminate how networks facilitate large-scale coordination -- and dynamics of change that lay beyond the control of any one individual involved.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Sandra González-Bailón is an Assistant Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication, and affiliated faculty at the Warren Center for Network and Data Sciences. Prior to joining Penn, she was a Research Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute (2008-2013), where she is now a Research Associate. She completed her doctoral degree in Nuffield College (University of Oxford) and her undergraduate studies at the University of Barcelona. Her research lies at the intersection of network science, data mining, computational tools, and political communication. She leads the research group DiMeNet –acronym for Digital Media, Networks, and Political Communication.
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Why Clean Energy Will Win: Technologies That Will Determine The Future
Wednesday, March 29
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM EDT
Cost: $0 - $30
Despite a tough policy landscape at the federal level, clean energy will fuel the next wave of the global economy, beating traditional fossil fuels in cost, investment dollars, and jobs. The companies represented on this panel -- 7AC Technologies, Pika Energy and Digital Lumens -- will likely play a significant role in the clean energy revolution. Please join E2, our distinguished panel and moderator Daniel Goldman, E2 co-founder, to learn more about these remarkable companies and their technologies.
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Leadership: Daring to Fail - A Conversation with Steven Beshear, former Governor of Kentucky
WHEN Wednesday, Mar. 29, 2017, 12:30 – 1:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard T.H. Chan of Public Health, Leadership Studio, 10th Floor Kresge Building, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Voices in Leadership Program at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
SPEAKER(S) Steven Beshear, former Governor of Kentucky
COST Free to attend, with valid Harvard ID
TICKET WEB LINK http://www.hsph.me/Beshear
TICKET INFO RSVP to the lottery for this event at hsph.me/Beshear
CONTACT INFO Please email voices@hsph.harvard.edu with any questions.
DETAILS The Voices in Leadership Program at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health invites you to watch online or attend the second webcast discussion of the semester, featuring Steven Beshear, former Governor of Kentucky and current Menschel Senior Fellow at HSPH. This event is scheduled for Wednesday, March 29 from 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. To enter the lottery to attend the talk, "Leadership: Daring to Fail," please visit hsph.me/Beshear. Please join us for this exciting event!
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Lunchtime Lecture with Ancient Grains cookbook author Maria Speck
Wednesday, March 29
12:30–1:30 pm
HSPH, FXB G11, 651 Huntington Avenue, Boston
Join the Food Literacy Project for a lunchtime lecture with award winning cookbook author Maria Speck (Simply Ancient Grains and Ancient Grains for Modern Meals). She will discuss simple cooking techniques, the benefits of ancient grains and dispel some grain nutrition myths. A sampling of her recipes will be served.
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Learning from the Past to Understand the Future of Ocean Ecosystems
WHEN Wednesday, Mar. 29, 2017, 4 – 5 p.m.
WHERE Radcliffe, Sheerr Room, Fay House, 10 Garden Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Environmental Sciences, Lecture, Science
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study
SPEAKER(S) Chris Bowler, 2016–2017 Grass Fellow, Radcliffe Institute; CNRS Director of Research, Institut de l’Ecole Normale Superieure (France)
COST Free and open to the public
CONTACT INFO events@radcliffe.harvard.edu
DETAILS Bowler is exploring ancient DNA from diatoms in sediments accumulated over the millennia on the seafloor. In this lecture, he will explain how past environments affected diatoms, thus helping to understand how diatoms will be affected by climate change in the future.
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Addressing Complexity: Smallholder Farmers Facing Climate Risks in Sub-Saharan Africa
Wednesday, March 29
4:00PM TO 5:30PM
Harvard, Belfer 503, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa face a complex web of risks and challenges. Those related to climate change are growing and jeopardizing production of the food and agricultural commodities on which they, and the world depend. Governments, the private sector and development actors are aware that dramatic and urgent changes are required to help smallholders address the risks, but the broader systems in which they all participate are not currently set to take on the challenges.
The study group will examine the risks and challenges from the perspective of interested stakeholders looking to promote the interests of smallholders. Focusing on cocoa and maize, and specifically efforts to promote greater resilience in the face of climate change, we will establish a framework that can guide system leaders who are looking to drive improved actions by governments, the private sector, development funders and practitioners, and the producers themselves.
Contact Name: Simon Winter
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Accelerator or Brake? Cash for Clunkers, Household Liquidity, and Aggregate Demand (Jonathan Parker)
WHEN Wednesday, Wed, March 29, 2017, 4:15 – 5:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Littauer-382, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Environmental Sciences, Lecture, Social Sciences, Sustainability
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Seminar in Environmental Economics and Policy
Harvard Environmental Economics Program
SPEAKER(S) Jonathan Parker
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Connected Health: Emerging Technologies Poised to Make our Lives Better
Wednesday, March 29
5:30p–8:00p
MIT, Building 32-144, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Emerging technology is changing the way we live our lives every day, and nowhere is this more apparent than the advances in the healthcare landscape.
According to Gartner’s 2016 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, "Transparently immersive experiences, the perceptual smart machine age, and the platform revolution are the three overarching technology trends that profoundly create new experiences with unrivaled intelligence"
Join us on March 29th to hear about some of the most exciting wearable technologies on the front wave of transformation in healthcare. From devices that measure brain activity and muscle stimulation for minimizing stress and tracking your workouts, to body sensors and voice activated collaborative care solutions helping to improve the quality of care for patients. You???ll hear from some of the leading entrepreneurs and innovators in the healthcare space as they showcase how they’re applying these emerging technologies to help improve our lives.
Keynote
Joseph Kvedar, MD, Vice President, Connected Health, Partners HealthCare
Speakers
Howard Brick, Senior Advisor, Senscio
John Loughnane, Chief of Innovation, Commonwealth Care Alliance
Tech Showcase
Rob Goldberg, Founder and CEO, Neumitra
Bill Rogers, CEO, Orbita
Ben Schlatka, Co-Founder & SVP of Corporate Development, MC-10
Allesandro Babini, C0-Founder, Humon
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free for Students; $20 MITEF Members: $45 non-members
Sponsor(s): MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge
For more information, contact: Amy Goggins
617-253-3937
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Farm Share Fair 2017
Wednesday, March 29
5:30 PM to 8:30 PM
The Armory, 191 Highland Avenue, Somerville
Farm Share Fair 2017 is the Boston area’s direct-to-consumer marketing event for food producers across Massachusetts. Consumers want to meet their farmers and have the opportunity to compare options. Vendors - get to know your target market one-on-one, and have the opportunity to sell your CSA, Farm Share or Home Delivery programs. On-site sampling, and food or product sales welcome! This annual event draws over 500 participants, and will be held at THE ARMORY on March 29, 2017. Sign up now – vendor space is limited! Sponsorship visibility opportunities available.
Questions? This event is produced by Mindy Harris Communications. Email mindy@mindyharriscommunications.com
Last Year’s Vendors and Sponsors Included (2016):
ASPCA
Boston Organics
Buckle Farm
Cambridge Energy Alliance
Chestnut Farms
Del Sur
Edible Boston
EH Chocolatier
Enterprise Farm
Farmer Dave’s
Farmers to You
The Farm School
The Food Project
General Assembly
Henrietta’s Table
Hosta Hill Farm
Land’s Sake Farm
Lilac Hedge Farm
Mei Mei Street Kitchen
Massachusetts Growth Capital Corporation
Picadilly Farm
Pioneer Valley Heritage Grains
Red Fire Farm
Revision Urban Farm
Shamrock Hives Farm
Shared Harvest CSA
Soluna Garden Farm
Somerville Chocolate CSA
Spindler Confections
Stone Soup Farm
Sun Moon Farm
Viridian
World Peas CSA
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Examining America’s Opioid Crisis
Wednesday, March 29
6pm
Harvard, JFK Jr. Forum, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
Speaker(s):
David Armstrong, Peter Shumlin, Gil Kerlikowske, Sheila Burke
Date: Wednesday, March 29, 2017 - 6:00pm
David Armstrong, Senior Enterprise Reporter, STAT
Peter Shumlin, 81st Governor, State of Vermont
Visiting Fellow, Institute of Politics, Spring 2017
Gil Kerlikowske, Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (2014-2017)
Institute of Politics Resident Fellow, Spring 2017
Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy (2009-2014)
Sheila Burke (Moderator), Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy, HKS
Faculty Research Fellow, Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy, HKS
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ArtScience Talks @ Le Lab: Jennifer Zuk & Catherine Lewis
Wednesday, March 29
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM EDT
Le Laboratoire Cambridge, 650 East Kendall Street, Cambridge
Music of Difference: Disability, Creativity, and Social Change
Talk Curator > Arts & Humanities @ Harvard Medical School
Doors/Talk > 6:00pm/6:30pm
Cost > FREE
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Science Research Public Lecture: The Scientist as Sentinel
WHEN Wednesday, Mar. 29, 2017, 7 – 8 p.m.
WHERE Harvard Science Center, Hall B, One Oxford Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Business, Education, Environmental Sciences, Ethics, Health Sciences, Lecture, Science, Special Events, Sustainability
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Division of Science
SPEAKER(S) Naomi Oreskes
COST Free
CONTACT INFO Korin Watras
DETAILS Scientists are often reluctant to speak in public on contested issues, for fear that this will “politicize” their science and have a negative impact on their credibility. In this talk, I examine these concerns, by exploring historical examples of scientists who have spoken up on scientific issues of broad importance, including nuclear weaponry, ozone depletion and climate change. These examples suggest that, while becoming a public figure does entail risks, there is little basis in history for the concern that it undermines the credibility of one’s scientific work. Moreover, these examples suggest that society needs scientists to speak up to alert society to challenges that, without science, we would not understand and might not even recognize. Yet they also do point to certain limits to what scientists can and should do as public figures.
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The City Talks: Coexistence
Wednesday,March 29
7:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Museum of Fine Arts, 465 Huntington Avenue, Boston
How do we unlearn differences within communities? Join Boston-area thinkers, institutions, entrepreneurs, activists, city officials, and artists at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for a free discussion inspired by themes in the exhibition “Political Intent,” on view now.
Our moderator will be Laura Weinstein, the MFA’s Ananda Coomaraswamy Curator of South Asian and Islamic Art. Panelists include:
Michael Dwan Singh, co-organizer, SubDrift Boston
Maryam Eskandari, principal, MIIM Designs
Robb Johnson, associate vice president, Fenway Health
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Thursday, March 30 - Saturday, April 1
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DigiFabCon
NERD Center, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge
Cost: $49
Exploring innovative uses of 3D Printing, lasers, CNC machining, robotics, CAD design and other digital fabrication tools to change the world!
DigiFabCon.org
KEYNOTES
To open the DigiFab Conference on Day 1, Sherry Lassiter, President of the Fab Foundation, and Dale Dougherty, founder of Maker Media, will give an overview of the life-changing projects happening today in the Fab Lab and Maker world. From inner cities in the USA to rural areas of Africa, from formal schools and colleges to community centers, tools like laser cutters, CNC machines, 3D Printers and CAD design are empowering people to enhance their lives and those of their fellow man.
Day 2 begins with a keynote from Neil Gershenfeld, Director of the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms and creater of the Fab Lab Network, taking us on a journey to see the future of digital fabrication machines including Machines that Make Machines.
Featured Presentations
Tomas Diez, Fab Cities
Fab City and the mass distribution of everything
Rachel Ignotofsky, author
Inspiring Women in Science
David Ott, Humanitarian Lab
Humanitarian Innovation Kit
Matthew Borgatti, Super-Releaser
Using digital fabrication to drive emerging technology
Program
DigiFabCon's 2017 program features:
interactive design events
panels on successful programs for fab cities, mobile labs and workforce training
education programming ideas
discussion of prototyping and distributed manufacturing
marketing strategies for sustainability
hands-on demos at the Fab Festival
book signings by Dale Dougherty & Rachel Ignotofsky
Workshops
New This Year!
Saturday April 1, choose from 2 hands-on workshops! Get your hands dirty in the Quadcopter Challenge, designing and building a remote-controlled drone, or Creating Fab Toys. Many more workshop titles will be posted soon!
Hosted by Boston area labs, it's also a chance to visit other centers of innovation!
REGISTER TODAY!
At just $49 for the conference and $29 for the workshops, we've worked hard to keep DigiFabCon affordable. But space is very limited at the Microsoft NERD Center so we encourage you to register today!
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Thursday, March 30
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Measurements and Advertising under Internet Censorship
Thursday, March 30
11:00 AM to 12:00 PM
MIT, Building 32-G882, Hewlet Room, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Ihan Ayyub Qazi , LUMS
Abstract
Internet censorship is prevalent, with as many as 70 countries restricting Internet access to their citizens. Internet censorship has a marked impact on various stakeholders in the Internet ecosystem (e.g., users, content providers, and advertisers). In this talk, I will discuss two projects that my research group has recently pursued.
In the first half of my talk, I will describe C-Saw, a platform for measuring Internet censorship at scale. Collecting continuous and reliable censorship measurements requires diverse and globally distributed monitors. Measurement systems that rely on volunteers to act as probe points have seen limited deployment as users often have little incentive to help gather continuous measurements. C-Saw addresses this challenge by offering data-driven circumvention to users and thus incentivizing them to opt-in. As more and more users crowd-source, the censorship data gets richer. This helps in adapting the circumvention approach based on the deployed censorship mechanism for improved page load times. (A preliminary version of this work appeared in ACM HotNets 2015)
In the second half of my talk, I will describe C-Adverts, a system for serving relevant ads, while allowing users to receive the benefits of circumvention/anonymity tools (e.g., Tor and Lantern). Advertising systems play a key role in online digital marketing by channelizing relevant ads from advertisers to users, via the publishers. When users in a censorship regime attempt to access blocked content through a proxy relay, they often observe a decrease in the relevance of ads. This not only frustrates users but also adversely impacts the advertising campaign. C-Adverts addresses this challenge by leveraging the insight that the ads served by advertising systems are usually hosted on domains that are different from the publisher domains and are almost always uncensored.
Bio
Ihsan Ayyub Qazi is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science in the SBA School of Science and Engineering at LUMS, Lahore, Pakistan. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Pittsburgh, PA USA in 2010 and his BSc. (Hons) degree from LUMS with a double major in Computer Science and Mathematics in 2005. Previously, he has held positions at BBN Technologies and the Centre for Advanced Internet Architectures. His research interests are in computer networks and distributed systems and span cloud computing and datacenters, Internet censorship, and wireless networks. His research has appeared in venues such as ACM SIGCOMM and IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking.
Contact: Sheila M. Marian, 617-253-1996, sheila@csail.mit.edu
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Just sustainabilities?: Social innovation and climate adaptation in Australia
Thursday, March 30
12:00-1:00pm
Tufts, Rabb Room, Lincoln Filene Center, 10 Upper Campus Road, Medford
Jason Byrne, Urban & Environmental Planning, Griffith University
Across the world, adaptation to climate change is increasingly occurring at the city scale. Yet much of the literature has a tendency to treat cities uniformly. This can mask critical social, environmental, economic and even political differences that configure the efficacy of adaptation and mitigation responses, and can reproduce and entrench social and environmental disparities (an environmental injustice). This talk will examine social innovation and climate change adaptation in four metropolitan regions in Australia - Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane (South East Queensland). Combining critical discourse analysis of climate change adaptation plans with interviews with local government and non-profit stakeholders, Dr. Byrne offers new insights into how different forms of social innovation are configuring adaptation responses in these cities.
Dr. Jason Byrne (@CityByrne) is Associate Professor of Urban & Environmental Planning with Griffith University's School of Environment, Gold Coast, Australia - where he has taught since 2006. A geographer and planner, Jason's research interests address climate change, environmental justice and political ecologies of green-space. He is a member of Griffith's Environmental Futures Research Institute, and sits on the editorial board of Local Environment and the Journal of Political Ecology. He has more than 100 scholarly publications, including an award-winning co-edited book Australian Environmental Planning: Challenges and Future Prospects. Jason completed his PhD in Geography at the University of Southern California, researching national parks as radicalised landscapes. Jason previously worked with the Western Australian government as a town planner and policy officer.
Watch it live from your computer or smart phone:
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State of Advanced Energy: Markets, Trends, Jobs
Thursday, March 30
1pm eastern
Webinar
This webinar presents highlights from the fifth edition of AEE's annual report of market size, by revenue, of the advanced energy industry, worldwide and in the United States, as well as the latest numbers of advanced energy jobs from the second national survey of energy employment by the Dept. of Energy. Also, learn about emerging trends in advanced energy markets and hear the perspectives of company executives.
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Back to the Future: Designing the Monsanto House of the Future for Disneyland in the 1950s
Thursday, March 30
1:00p–2:00p
MIT Museum, Building N51, 265 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Gary Van Zante, MIT Museum Curator of Architecture and Design
Join Gary Van Zante, MIT Museum Curator of Architecture and Design, and examine original design drawings and other documentation from the Architecture and Design collections of the MIT Museum.
This one-hour session will focus on the design of one of the most influential of twentieth century prototype houses, the Monsanto House of the Future (completed 1957;designed by Marvin Goody and Richard Hamilton), a project developed at MIT for Monsanto Corporation and exhibited at Disneyland in Anaheim from 1957-1967. The program will explore the development of the Monsanto House through original design drawings, documents and photographs, from its conception at MIT through its exhibition (and eventual destruction) at Disneyland.
Web site: http://www.bostondesignweek.com/mit
Open to: the general public
Cost: Included with Museum admission
Tickets: RSVP: marthad@mit.edu
Sponsor(s): MIT Museum
For more information, contact: Martha Davis
617-253-5927
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Theatre as a Form of Resistance to Oppression and Genocide
Thursday, March 30
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM EDT
Semel Theater, 10 Boylston Place, Boston
How can you form resistance with theatre? World renowned playwright and activist Joshua Sobol looks to engage in this question during a talk, followed by dialogue. His talk will refer to Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, Molière's plays (from School for Women to Tartuffe), Becket's Godot and his own work within the Israeli and Middle-Eastern contemporary context. The lecture will be introduced by President Lee Pelton, and followed by a Q&A session, moderated by Producing Artistic Director of Israeli Stage Guy Ben-Aharon ('12).
This event is co-sponsored by Israeli Stage and Emerson College's Office of the President, Institute for Liberal Arts, Performing Arts Department, School of the Arts, and Writing Literature Publishing. Special thanks to Amy Ansell, Melia Bensussen, Maria Koundoura, Lee Pelton and Rob Sabal.
Joshua Sobol (Playwright in Residence) is a Playwright, Director and Author. Sobol has written over 75 plays and directed productions in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Israel and the United States. His most famous play, Ghetto, has been performed in 24 countries, and his plays have garnered many awards, among others are: The Evening Standard Award for Best Play of the Year; The Critics’ Circle London Theatre Awards – Best New Play 1989; Laurence Olivier Award Nomination for Best Play; Mainichi Art Prize – Best Play of the Year; Yumiuri Shimbun Grand Prize for Best Play of the Year. Sobol won five David’s Harpawards for Best Israeli Playand won the Israeli Theatre Award for Lifetime Achievement. Sobol was awarded The Golden Medal of the City of Vienna for Excellent Achievement in 2014. Israeli Stage: readings of Sinners and Wanderers.
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The Science of Human Collective Behavior Using Twitter
Thursday, March 30
5:00 to 7:30 PM
NE Complex Systems Institute, 277 Broadway, Cambridge
On Thursday, March 30 from 5:00 to 7:30 PM, the New England Complex Systems Institute will host an open house for our new offices located at 277 Broadway in Cambridge, MA.
At 5:30 PM there will be a special presentation by senior postdoctoral researcher Alfredo J. Morales. Titled "The Science of Human Collective Behavior Using Twitter," this presentation will cover structural and dynamical patterns of social systems revealed through the analysis of data from social media like Twitter.
Morales uses complex systems science to retrieve important information from Big Data produced by a globally-tweeting civilization. Tweets can reveal unstructured patterns of social behavior across multiple scales, ranging from the daily routines of individuals up to the collective pulse of activities within cities and global networks of communication and synchronicities that can span hemispheres.
The presentation will feature insights into human collective behaviors and visualizations of Twitter activity on local, national, and global scales. To see some of these visualizations and for further reading, check out our recently published paper in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface:
This presentations will also be streamed live on Google Hangouts.
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Beyond The Battery: The Software Side of Energy Storage
Thursday, March 30
6:00 PM to 8:30 PM (EDT)
Greentown Labs, 28 Dane Street, Somerville
As energy storage becomes a critical element of the modern grid, the software behind it will ensure it can operate, integrate and manage complex electricity demands on ever complex systems. Join us for an evening of exploration on this subject focused on how some of the largest players in energy storage innovation are thinking about software and integrating it into their businesses.
Panelists:
(Moderator) Richard Stuebi, President, Future Energy Advisors
Ravi Manghani, Director of Energy Storage at Greentech Media Research
Michael Hess, Vice President, Smart & Sustainable Buildings at Panosonic
Sander Cohan, Director of Innovation at Enel Green Power
Dana Guernsey, Director of Corporate Development at Ambri
Michael Berlinski, Director at Customized Energy Solutions
Schedule:
6:00pm - 6:30pm - Open Networking
6:30pm - 6:35pm - Welcome from Greentown Labs
6:35pm - 6:40pm - Welcome from our Sponsor
6:40pm - 7:40pm - Panel
7:40pm - 8:00pm - Q&A
8:00pm - 8:30pm - Open Networking
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Science by the Pint: What brain connectivity reveals about music, language, and creativity
Thursday, March 30
6:30 PM
Aeronaut Brewery, 14 Tyler Street, Somervill
Dr Psyche Loui
More information at
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Demo+Discuss Tech/Science to Expand Consciousness via Contemplative Practice
Thursday, March 30
6:30 PM
Harvard Divinity School, 45 Francis Avenue, Cambridge
Consciousness Hacking is a growing community interested in expanding the focus area of local design, science and tech talent to include contemplative frameworks (emotional, psychological, spiritual benefits and costs of tech). This event will bring together experts in Mindfulness, Transcendental Meditation, Neuro-engineering, Psychiatry, Self-Reflection Technology and more.
It's an awesome space to learn from and connect with people creating new tools for self-exploration! Our demos and speakers this time around are crazy cool :) Bring along project ideas or come to talk!
SPEAKERS
Dr. Jeffrey Rediger is a professor at Harvard Medical School and Medical Director at McLean Hospital, an expert in the power of mind over the body, holding both an MD and Master's of Divinity. Check out his TEDx.
Dr. Andreas Mershin is a multidisciplinary "no labels" Research Scientist at MIT's Center for Bits and Atoms. Trained as a physicist, his current work involves using EEG to quantify subjective states of mind during sensory deprivation tank experiences. Hear him talk on the Quantum Brain.
Baruti KMT-Sisouvong is a PhD Candidate in Vedic Science from Maharishi University of Management and Director of Cambridge's Transcendental Meditation Program. For a sense of his interests and expertise see here.
Chris Berlin is an instructor in pastoral counseling at Harvard Divinity School. He teaches clinical training for Buddhists in care-giving roles and interfaith chaplaincy, and served as an interfaith chaplain at Dana-Farer Cancer Institute where he taught meditation and mindfulness to patients in treatment and end of life care, as well as to staff and clinicians. See him speak on Buddhism here.
DEMOS
Rébecca Kleinberger is a PhD candidate in Tod Machover's the Opera of the Future group at the MIT Media Lab. Her Master's thesis focused on creating tools and experiences to help people discover themselves through the uniqueness and expressivity of their voice. For her PhD she focuses on creating self-reflection technologies; experiences to connect people with themselves and with others using techniques such as VR, lasers, wearable tech or robotics. See her amazing work.
Marie-Therese Png is currently studying for her Masters in Mind, Brain and Education at the Harvard GSE. Her current project out of the MIT Media Lab is using neurotechnology to increase awareness of fear responses to decrease implicit racial bias. She is co-heading the AI, Brain and Cognition Initiative out of the Future Society at Harvard Kennedy School. Learn more here!
Chi is a Virtual Reality experience that integrates tactile feedback and visual cues to teach Tai Chi (First Runner Up, MIT Hacking Arts 2016!)
John Ruelas is CTO of Martian Wearables, specializing in affordable, research grade-EEG systems, allowing everyone the opportunity for continuous self-monitoring and neurofeedback training.
When We Die is a two-part Virtual Reality experience that guides users through the process of contemplating their own mortality and presents expert points of view that may not have previously been considered. Death and Dying in VR.
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Invasive Species and Carbon Cycling in Coastal Dunes of Cape Cod
Thursday, March 30
7pm
NE Aquarium, Simons IMAX Theatre, Aquarium Wharf, Boston
Robert Vincent, Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sea Grant College Program
Rose M. Martin, Ph.D., Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, Postdoctoral Researcher at EPA Atlantic Ecology Division (pictured)
The MIT Sea Grant College Program and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have been working with the National Park Service to study carbon cycling in coastal dune habitats, as well as the effects of historic peat deposits on the establishment and persistence of invasive plants (Phragmites australis). With the increased risk of erosion from coastal storms exposing the once-buried peat deposits, and the challenge of controlling an aggressive invasive species, this dynamic system faces an uncertain future. The research findings from this study will inform future conservation efforts in the region as well as provide a deeper understanding of carbon cycling in coastal dunes.
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Friday, March 31
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Experimental Evolution with Pesticides on Host-Microbiome Phenotypes
Friday, March 31
8:30AM TO 9:30AM
Harvard, HUCE Seminar Room 429, 26 Oxford Street, 4th Floor, Cambridge
with Robert Brucker (Rowland Institute, Rowland Junior Fellow)
Coffee, tea, and pastries will be served.
MSI Chalktalk
Contact Name: Michelle Goldberg
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Babson Energy & Environment Conference: Zero Waste Challenge
Friday, March 31
9:00 AM – 5:00 PM EDT
Olin Auditorium, Olin Hall, Babson College, 231 Forest Street, Wellesley
Cost: $10 – $50
Babson is hosting the 11th Energy & Environment Conference. This year’s theme is Babson Challenge: Zero Waste. Our esteemed thought leader panelists will discuss the opportunity and challenges associated with attaining a zero waste existence to promote sustainable living.
OUR MISSION
We believe that it’s our collective responsibility to manage our environmental resources in a more sustainable manner.
Our goal is to engage and empower students by connecting with sustainable companies and industries in Massachusetts and beyond! We work to improve Babson College’s commitment to sustainability and push towards a Zero Waste campus.
This conference is in its 11th year and we are proud to carry on the tradition of engaging thought leaders in the sustainability space and generating the conversations that will help shape the future.
AGENDA
The day will consist of a keynote and two panels of esteemed professionals.
Registration (9:00am - 9:15 am)
Keynote: Gwen Ruta, SVP Climate and Energy at EDF (9:15am - 10:15am)
Challenges in Waste Management (10:30am - 12:00pm)
Remi Trudel, Professor, Boston University
Phil Goddard,Town of Bourne, MA and SNE Chapter, SWANA
Edward Hsieh, Executive Director, MASSRecycle
Jacob Vaillancourt, Founder & CEO, Wastehub
Lunch (12:15pm - 1:45pm)
Innovations in Climate Finance (2:00pm - 3:30pm)
Barbara Finer, Founder & CEO, Tech Sandbox
Udi Meirav, Founder & CEO, enVerid
David Adamian, CEO, GreenerU
Networking Session (3:30pm - 5:00pm)
*Lunch included with paid tickets
FOR MORE INFORMATION
More information can be found at our website : http://babsonenergy.com/2017conference/
For questions please contact: aescardo1@babson.edu
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Conversations: new frameworks for public discourse
Friday, March 31, 2017
9:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Northeastern, Egan Engineering/Science Research Center and Raytheon Amphitheater
120 Forsyth Street, Boston
Exploring the role of media innovation, emerging modes of communication and digital storytelling in an era of fragmented communities
Join us for a conference featuring a broad range of award-winning journalists, innovative scholars and practitioners.
The day will focus on the role of media in times of fragmentation and the creation of new tools & frameworks to promote civil discourse.
Information is being consumed by the public in increasingly diverse ways, and as the definition of news continues to evolve, communication itself is being reshaped by developing cultural trends and emerging technology.
Within this ever-changing environment, the media has a unique capacity to drive fact-based storytelling by leveraging the art and the science of communication.
This conference will explore the tools, contexts and constituencies that the media can use to promote civil discussion about the pressing issues facing our fragmented society.
We will explore methods of effectively bridging technology, data analytics, information visualization and public engagement to present the news to multifaceted audiences and investigate the obstacles to communicating across the divide.
Organized by Matt Carroll, Professor of the Practice, Northeastern School of Journalism. Previously Carroll ran the Knight Foundation-funded Future of News initiative at the MIT Media Lab, where he organized conferences on thorny issues confronting journalism and worked with students to help create tools for newsrooms.
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Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization
WHEN Friday, Mar. 31, 2017, 12 – 1:15 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Allison Dining Room, Taubman Building, 15 Eliot Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Center for International Development at Harvard Kennedy School
SPEAKER(S) Parag Khanna, Geo-Strategist, best selling author & Senior Research Fellow, National University of Singapore.
CONTACT INFO Andrea_Hayes@hks.harvard.edu
DETAILS Parag Khanna will present his latest book, "Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization". In this book Khanna guides us through the emerging global network civilization in which mega-cities compete over connectivity more than borders. His journeys take us from Ukraine to Iran, Mongolia to North Korea, Panama City to Dubai, and the Arctic Circle to the South China Sea—all to show how 21st century conflict is a tug-of-war over pipelines and Internet cables, advanced technologies and market access.
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Incorporating climate projections in health impact studies
Friday, March 31
12:45pm
BU School of Medicine, L210, 715 Albany Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Pat Kinney
Summary: To inform adaptation and mitigation strategies, policy makers need information on the health effects of future climate change under different scenarios of policy action and climate change. Scientists engaged in climate and health research are increasingly working with climate modelers to incorporate projections of climate in future decades as inputs to health impact assessments. This seminar will explore the opportunities and challenges associated with this work, and review recent applications via case studies.
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Getting to the Point with Senator Bernie Sanders
Friday, March 31
2:00 pm
Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, Columbia Point, Boston
Join Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the U.S. Senate for a conversation on the future of American democracy. In 2017, the Institute is engaging visitors and event attendees in a conversation around how to activate change at the local, state, and federal levels. Senator Sanders will discuss the importance of active citizen participation in the path towards progress and change.
A moderated conversation with James Pindell, Political Reporter at The Boston Globe will follow. The program will also include a Q&A with questions submitted by audience members.
The event is free and open to the public but advance registration is required. Tickets will be in high demand and we expect all seats in the Chamber to be filled. Overflow seating will be available.
Speakers:
Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) @SenSanders
James Pindell, Political Reporter, The Boston Globe @JamesPindell
REGISTRATION & SEATING
Registration opens no earlier than 1:00 p.m. and seating will begin at 1:30 p.m. Seats in the chamber are available on a first come, first served basis. Some seats have obstructed views. If needed, an overflow room will provide guests with a live stream of the program. Guests who arrive after the program begins at 2 p.m. will be seated in the overflow space. Registration and doors close 15 minutes after the start of the program.
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Public Banking and Our Common Wealth
Friday, March 31
Doors open at 5:30 and the talk begins at 5:45
Encuentro 5, 9 Hamilton Place, Boston
Ellen Brown, founder of the Public Banking Institute and author of The Public Banking Solution and Web of Debt
Come hear about the advantages of public banking, from the Bank of North Dakota here in the US, to public banks around the world. Ellen will discuss how the privatized creation of money draws us into an endless cycle of debt, and how public banking offers not only a more sustainable foundation for "common wealth," but could also address issues with infrastructure and protect us against the next recession.
There will be plenty of opportunities for questions, and to learn more about legislation for a public infrastructure bank here in Massachusetts.
For more information, email bclancy122@earthlink.net or call 978-760-4123.
Schedule:
5:30-5:45: getting settled, introductions
5:45-6:30: Ellen speaking
6:30-6:40: a bit about our pending bill to establish a Bank of Massachusetts for Municipal Infrastructure
6:40-7:15: q & a
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Mexico City at a Crossroads: Designing an Urban Future in the Era of Climate Change
WHEN Friday, Mar. 31, 2017, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Art/Design
DETAILS Mexico City’s Mayor Miguel Mancera will discuss current challenges for the nation’s capital city, which was recently named the World Design Capital for 2018 by ICSID. The mayor will share lessons learned so far and engage in a dialogue about the built environmental future of CDMX (Ciudad de México) going forward. Mexico City has emerged out of a complex history to take a role as a leading global metropolis but is now in flux. Renowned for its architecture and design aesthetics, the city also faces major infrastructural scarcities in transportation, water supply, and affordable housing. Its enormous scale poses environmental, energy, and public health problems associated with pollution, carbon emissions, and urban sprawl. Recent efforts to write a new city constitution have amplified conflicts over how to build, govern, and finance its future. This keynote lecture—which launches a day-long conference on Harvard’s campus sponsored by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies that will include participation by governing officials and activists as well as leading researchers on CDMX—will highlight Mexico City’s tripartite identity as global leader, national powerhouse, and sovereign urban authority confronting the multi-scalar territorial and environmental challenges of the twenty-first century.
Co-sponsored by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and the Interdisciplinary Urbanism Initiative, Department of Urban Planning and Design
Anyone requiring accessibility accommodations should contact the events office at (617) 496-2414 or events@gsd.harvard.edu.
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Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean
Friday, March 31
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store welcomes marine conservationist JONATHAN WHITE, author of Talking on the Water: Conversations about Nature and Creativity, for a discussion of his latest book, Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean.
About Tides
In Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean, writer, sailor, and surfer Jonathan White takes readers across the globe to discover the science and spirit of ocean tides. In the Arctic, White shimmies under the ice with an Inuit elder to hunt for mussels in the dark cavities left behind at low tide; in China, he races the Silver Dragon, a twenty-five-foot tidal bore that crashes eighty miles up the Qiantang River; in France, he interviews the monks that live in the tide-wrapped monastery of Mont Saint-Michel; in Chile and Scotland, he investigates the growth of tidal power generation; and in Panama and Venice, he delves into how the threat of sea level rise is changing human culture—the very old and very new. Tides combines lyrical prose, colorful adventure travel, and provocative scientific inquiry into the elemental, mysterious paradox that keeps our planet’s waters in constant motion. Photographs, scientific figures, line drawings, and sixteen color photos dramatically illustrate this engaging, expert tour of the tides.
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Saturday, April 1
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Just Food? Forum on Labor Across the Food System
Saturday, April 1
8:30 am–5 pm
Harvard, Austin Hall, 1515 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/just-food-forum-on-labor-across-the-food-system-tickets-31267237148
Cost: $10 = $50
This year’s Just Food? Conference will focus on labor in the food system, exploring the issues most relevant to those who grow, harvest, prepare, and serve our food. Participants will learn from a diverse group of food system workers, advocates, scholars, practitioners and other authorities, who will speak about their work on topics including agricultural worker rights, worker compensation in the restaurant industry, regulatory responses, and alternative ownership and operating models. Through the conference, we hope to shift attention toward a critical, but often overlooked, component of our food system: the workers. By amplifying the voices of those most embedded in our food system, we hope to educate participants, empower them to make positive change, and ultimately, work together to create a more just food system.
Keynotes speakers include:
Sheila R. Maddali on discriminatory labor practices in the restaurant industry.
Steve Hitov and Fabiola Mieres on the Coalition of Immokalee Workers Fair Food Program.
Panels topics will include:
Fair compensation in the restaurant industry
Migrant labor in the dairy industry
Laws and regulations impacting labor across the food system
Labor issues in the fishing industry
Immigrants contribution to the US agriculture industry
And more!
We do not want the cost of registration to prohibit anyone from attending. We have a limited number of registration scholarships available. If you feel the registration fee is a financial burden that would prevent you from attending, please email harvard.justfood@gmail.com with the subject "Conference Scholarship." Please include a short paragraph about why you would like to attend the conference.
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Data for Democracy Hackathon - Boston
Saturday, April 1
10:00 AM to 4:00 PM (EDT)
MIT, Building 5-134, 55 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Use your data and technology skills for good at the very first Data for Democracy hackathon! Come along and join an active project using data for positive social impact or start a new one. This is open to everyone, even if you haven't been active in the Data for Democracy community.
The Hackathon will be happening from March 31 - April 2 in cities across the country. For volunteers in the Boston area, the MIT Association of Computational Science and Engineering Students and the MIT Transportation Club are hosting an in-person hack day at MIT.
Refreshments will be provided by data.world.
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Monday, April 3, 2017 at 12:00 PM to Tuesday, April 4, 2017 at 5:30 PM (EDT)
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ZOFNASS PROGRAM WORKSHOP: BUSINESS CASE FOR SUSTAINABLE INFRASTRUCTURE
Harvard Business School (Monday) Cumnock Hall Room 102, Allston
Harvard Graduate School of Design (Tuesday), 48 Quincy street, Stubbins Room 112, Cambridge
The Zofnass Program for Sustainable Infrastructure is would like to invite you to the Zofnass Program Workshop: The Business Case for Sustainable Infrastructure on April 3-4, 2017 at the Harvard Business School, and Harvard Graduate School of Design.
This Zofnass Workshop is dedicated to the discussion of the Business Case for Sustainable Infrastructure through various stakeholder-focused panels and working sessions. The Zofnass Program for Sustainable Infrastructure considers critical to focus on the economic benefits of sustainable infrastructure. It is widely known that sustainable projects avoid impacts, costs and negative externalities, but these are rarely measured and shared with public officials and taxpayers.The workshop is designed to identify the challenges that each stakeholder face when integrating sustainable solutions, as well as identify opportunities for collaboration between the different parties involved.
This event will convene leaders in infrastructure development, financiers, investors, policy makers, regulators, engineers, designers, planners, infrastructure operators, and academics to share and discuss perspectives on the Business Case for Sustainable Infrastructure.
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Monday, April 3
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Finance, Geography, and Sustainability: Workshop Day One
Monday, April 3
8:00a–5:00p
MIT, Building 9-255, 105 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Workshop Day One
David Weil 9:00am-10:00am The Fissured Workplace and the Future of Work
Deborah Freize 10:00am-11:00am A Place-Based Approach to Impact Investing
Barbara Buchner 10:30am-11:30am Towards a Sustainable Future
Elke Weber 11:30am-12:30pm Risk as Feeling and Perception Matters
Neil Fligstein 1:30pm-2:30pm Financial Markets as Production Markets
Katherina Pistor 3:00pm-4:00pm Coding Behavior
Nazli Choucri 4:00pm-5:00pm TBA
RSVP Required: http://bit.ly/2kxez19
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Department of Urban Studies and Planning, School of Architecture and Planning
For more information, contact: Janelle Knox-Hayes
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System Effects Mapping as a Tool for Environmental Policy & Planning
Monday, April 3
12 – 1PM
Tufts, Aidekman Arts Center, 40 Talbot Avenue, Medford
Luke Craven
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U.S. Natural Gas Market Evolution
Monday, April 3
12:00PM TO 1:30PM
Harvard, Bell Hall, 5th Floor, Belfer Building, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
with Richard O’Neill, Chief Economic Adviser, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Lunch is provided.
Energy Policy Seminar
Contact Name: Louisa Lund
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The Future of Food: Climate, Crops, and Consequences
Monday, April 3
5pm
Geological Lecture Hall (100), 24 Oxford Street, Cambridge
with Michael K. Stern, Chief Executive Officer, President, The Climate Corporation and Vice President, Monsanto Company.
The series, organized by the Harvard University Center for the Environment, highlights the interactions between agriculture and climate and their consequences for health and stability in an ongoing series of discussions with speakers from government, academia, and industry.
Learn more about the series and full schedule of speakers.
Contact Name: Laura Hanrahan
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Joi Ito in discussion with Robert Langer, Whiplash
Monday, April 3
5:30 PM – 6:30 PM EDT
MIT Press Bookstore, 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/joi-ito-in-discussion-with-robert-langer-whiplash-tickets-31642740288
Cost: $10 – $22.40
The MIT Press Bookstore presents Joi Ito, Director of MIT’s Media Lab, in conversation with Robert Langer, David H. Koch Institute Professor in MIT’s Department of Biological Engineering, discussing Ito’s new book, Whiplash: How to Survive Our Faster Future, at 5:30 pm on Monday, April 3, at the Bookstore. Canan Dagderiven of the Media Lab will moderate the discussion and question-and-answer session.
The future will run on an entirely new operating system. It’s a major upgrade, but it comes with a steep learning curve. The logic of a faster future oversets the received wisdom of the past, and the people who succeed will be the ones who learn to think differently. In Whiplash, Joi Ito and Jeff Howe distill that logic into nine organizing principles for navigating and surviving this tumultuous period.
This event includes a book signing. Books will be on sale at the event for 20% off, or you can purchase an event ticket that includes a discounted book.
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Conversations on Civic Innovation: Impact of New Media on Civic Initiatives
Monday, April 3
5:30 PM – 8:30 PM EDT
District Hall, 75 Northern Avenue, Boston
Social Media and new approaches to journalism have had broad impact on how civic initiatives are organized and executed. Community and political movements have new tools to attract interested parties and launch campaigns. The last Federal election cycle is just one of several examples where various parties worked with and around the traditional journalism channels to get their message out using these new media options. These approaches certainly impact how governments connect with their constituencies, nonprofits engage with their communities, neighborhood movements organize, and civic / political leaders communicate.
This conversation will review the fast changing world of journalism and social media and how it impacts civic initiatives.
Moderator - Asma Khalid, Political Reporter at WBUR
Eric Gordon – Associate Professor in the Department of Visual and Media Arts at Emerson College
Robert McClure – Co-founder and Executive Director at InvestigateWest
Additional speakers TBD
Schedule:
5:30-6:00 PM - Registration and networking
6:00-7:00 PM - Panel Discussion
7:00-7:30 PM - Q&A
7:30-8:30 PM - Post event networking
The Conversations on Civic Innovation is a regular series, co-convened by the Venture Café Foundation and the Microsoft Innovation and Policy Center New England.
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Imagine Boston 2030 Master Plan
Monday, April 3
6:00 pm to 7:00 pm
BU, 755 Commonwealth Avenue, Room B02b, Boston
Guest lecturer: Rebekah Emanuel, Executive Director, Imagine Boston 2030
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The Age of Reason Got it Wrong: Understanding Social Conflict Through a Brain Science Lens
Monday, April 3
6:00 PM
The Burren, 247 Elm Street, Somerville
Meet us in the Back Room
Cost: $15.00 /per person includes free drink*
*Students free with school ID (no free drink)*
Doors open at 6pm. Program starts at 6:45pm.
Most approaches to solving the most pressing social challenges we face are wrong because they are rooted in the deeply flawed assumption that human behaviors and decisions are purely rational. Brain science and hard-won experience demonstrate just the opposite, revealing the primary role unconscious processes play in shaping our behaviors and decision-making, especially in the aftermath of violence and trauma. To thrive in the 21st century, what is needed is a profound reshaping of our approaches to human conflict and division, one that is rooted in a nuanced, empirical understanding of human behavior.
Timothy Phillips is a pioneer in the field of conflict resolution and reconciliation and co-founder of Beyond Conflict, a global initiative that is internationally recognized for contributions to the field of transitional justice in post-communist Europe. Using the unique approach of shared experience, Beyond Conflict has helped catalyze the peace and reconciliation processes in several nations, including Northern Ireland, El Salvador, and South Africa. Under Mr. Phillips’ leadership, Beyond Conflict launched a partnership with MIT to conduct cutting-edge research on the relationship between neuroscience and social conflict. Mr. Phillips has advised the United Nations, the U.S. Department of State, and the Council of Europe and has been a frequent speaker in national and international forums, including the Council on Foreign Relations and the U.S. Congress. He helped launch and serves on the Advisory Committee of the Club of Madrid, a forum for about 90 former democratic heads of state and government.
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Tuesday, April 4
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Algorithmic Consumers
Tuesday, April 4
12:00 pm
Harvard, Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East C (Room 2036, second floor), 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP required to attend in person at https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheons/2017/04/AlgorithmicConsumers#RSVP
Event will be live webcast at https://cyber.harvard.edu/events/luncheons/2017/04/AlgorithmicConsumers at 12:00 pm
Hate shopping? The next generation of e-commerce will be conducted by digital agents, based on algorithms that will not only make purchase recommendations, but will also predict what we want, make purchase decisions, negotiate and execute the transaction for the consumers, and even automatically form coalitions of buyers to enjoy better terms, thereby replacing human decision-making. Algorithmic consumers have the potential to change dramatically the way we conduct business, raising new conceptual and regulatory challenges.
This game-changing technological development has significant implications for regulation, which should be adjusted to a reality of consumers making their purchase decisions via algorithms. Despite this challenge, scholarship addressing commercial algorithms focused primarily on the use of algorithms by suppliers. In this presentation we explore the technological advances which are shaping algorithmic consumers, and analyze how these advances affect the competitive dynamic in the market. We analyze the implications of such technological advances on regulation, identifying three main challenges. We further discuss some of the challenges to human autonomous choice that arise from these developments, and examine whether the existing legal framework is adequate to address them.
Forthcoming Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, Vol. 30, 2017
About Michal
Michal Gal (LL.B., LL.M., S.J.D.) is Professor and Director of the Forum on Law and Markets at the Faculty of Law, University of Haifa, Israel. She was a Visiting Professor at NYU, Columbia, Georgetown, Melbourne and Lisbon. Prof. Gal is the author of several books, including Competition Policy for Small Market Economies (Harvard University Press, 2003). She also published scholarly articles on competition law issues and has won prizes for her research and for her teaching. Inter alia, she was chosen as one of the ten most promising young legal scholars in Israel (Globes, 2007) and as one of the leading women in competition law around the world (Global Competition Review). Her paper, "Merger Policy for Small and Micro Economies", won the Antitrust Writings Award for best paper on merger policy in 2013, and her paper on "Access to Big Data" (with Daniel Rubinfeld) is short-listed for this year's prize. Prof. Gal is the President of the International Academic Society for Competition Law Scholars (ASCOLA). She served as a consultant to several international organizations (including OECD, UNCTAD) on issues of competition law and was a non-governmental advisor of the International Competition Network (ICN). She also advised several small economies and regiional organizations on the framing of their competition laws. She is a board member of several international antitrust organizations, including the American Antitrust Institute (AAI), The Antitrust Consumer Institute, the Asian Competition Law and Economics Center (ACLEC). She clerked at the Israeli Supreme Court, and her work is often cited in the decisions of the Court on competition matters.
About Niva
Niva Elkin-Koren is a Visiting Professor of Law at HLS, where she teaches Digital Copyright, and a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center . She is the founding director of the Haifa Center for Law & Technology (HCLT) and the former dean of the University of Haifa, Faculty of Law. Her research focuses on the legal institutions that facilitate private and public control over the production and dissemination of knowledge. She has written and spoken extensively about digital governance, legal oversight of algorithmic decision-making, liability of online intermediaries, the privatization of information policy, private ordering, the economic analysis of intellectual property, and legal strategies for enhancing the public domain. She is the Chair of the Scientific Advisory Council, of the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society in Berlin, a member of the Executive Committee of Association for the Advancement of Teaching and Research in Intellectual Property (ATRIP), and an Advisory Board Member in the Information Program of the Open Society Foundation. She is also a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of the Copyright Society (since 2009) the Journal of Information Policy (since 2010) and the Internet Policy Review (since 2016). Prof. Elkin-Koren received her LL.B from Tel-Aviv University Faculty of Law in 1989, her LL.M from Harvard Law School in 1991, and her S.J.D from Stanford Law School in 1995.
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CDD Forum: Conscripting Climate: Environmental Risk and Defensive Urbanism
Tuesday, April 4
12:30p–6:00p
MIT, Building 10-485, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
This half-day symposium will bring together leading scholars, policy experts and practitioners speaking to the opportunities and risks for urban planning and adaptation of an evolving climate security agenda. The security implications of climate change have become an increasingly dominant framing of the issue both inside and outside of the defense apparatus. As the history of the intersection between defense and urban planning has shown, this could have significant impacts on forms of adaptation in the built environment. In three panels on April 4th from 12:30 - 6:00, the symposium will offer a critical exploration of these issues, pointing to directions for future research and practice.
Featured speakers:
Simin Davoudi, Professor of Environmental Policy and Planning, Newcastle University
Damian F. White, Professor of History, Philosophy, and the Social Sciences, RISD
Sarah E. Light, Assistant Professor of Legal Studies and Business Ethics, The Wharton School
Sherri Goodman, Senior Fellow, Environmental Change and Security Program, Wilson Center
More info TBA
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): City Design and Development, Department of Urban Studies and Planning
For more information, contact: Sonny Oram
6172535115
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Can technology unlock 'unburnable carbon'?
Tuesday, April 4
5:00p–6:00p
MIT, Building 66-110, 25 Ames Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Sara Budinis
To stay within the 2 degree C carbon budget, a very significant reduction in fossil fuel consumption is required. If we are to meet our carbon budget, the majority of global fossil fuel reserves cannot be combusted. The role of technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) may be critical in enabling a greater quantity of fossil fuel to be combusted within a low-carbon framework; however, a number of studies are currently reaching different conclusions. During this talk, Dr. Budinis will assess the current state of knowledge regarding the 'unburnable carbon' issue and attempt to provide clarity by quantitatively defining the potential role of CCS in unlocking the unburnable carbon over the next 85 years.
Sponsored by the MITEI Low-Carbon Energy Center for Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage.
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): MIT Energy Initiative
For more information, contact: MITEI Events
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Consumerism Meets Minimalism: Can We Live More with Less?
Tuesday, April 4
6:00 PM – 8:30 PM EDT
Cambridge Innovation Center - Venture Cafe, One Broadway, Cambridge
Cost: $8 – $12
The arrival of the sharing economy, the tiny house boom, the joy of liberating worldly possessions, and celebrating not buying the latest gadget tell us the tide of consumerism is shifting again. In the last several months alone, we have seen example after example of how modern information platforms and increased transparency can be used to give people the power to vote with their wallets. In addition to exercising economic and political influence through our purchasing behavior, though, there is also a broad trend toward divesting of the consumption cycle altogether. Modern minamilism proposes to reunite us with meaningful living and greater connectedness with ourselves and others rather than with objects. Juliet Schor, renowned researcher, author and expert on our connected consumption and economy, joins us to unpack the promise of living with less and its impact on the planet.
Guest Speaker
When we announced upcoming speaker Juliet Schor at the March BASG event, people literally danced with joy. Juliet Schoris Professor of Sociology at Boston College. Schor is also a member of the MacArthur Foundation Connected Learning Research Network and scientific advisor to the Sustainable Consumption Research and Action Initiative (SCORAI). Schor’sresearch focuses on consumption, time use, and environmental sustainability. A graduate of Wesleyan University, Schor received her Ph.D. in economics at the University of Massachusetts. Before joining Boston College, she taught at Harvard University for 17 years, in the Department of Economics and the Committee on Degrees in Women's Studies. In 2014 Schor received the American Sociological Association’s award for Public Understanding of Sociology.
Schor has lectured widely throughout the United States, Europe and Japan to a variety of civic, business, labor and academic groups. She appears frequently on national and international media, and profiles on her and her work have appeared in scores of magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and People magazine. She has appeared on 60 Minutes, the Today Show, Good Morning America, and the The Early Show on CBS. She is the author of the bestseller The Overworked American and several other books that explore consumer culture. She is a contributor to the recent film Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things. We cannot wait! Join us. - Carol, Holly, and Tilly
More about Juliet Schor and the film Minimalism
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ProfDev: Advocacy in the Time of Trump - Moving Beyond Tactics
Tuesday, April 4
6:00 PM to 8:30 PM
The NonProfit Center, 89 South Street, Boston
Fee: $15 advance/$30 door - split with trainer
Limited space - register ahead of time
Credit cards accepted online and at the door.
Newcomers always welcomed!
There are many, many reasons to be resisting right now. This training will help you become more strategic and effective.
Join Socializing for Justice for a ProfDev (professional development) training Advocacy in the Time of Trump: Moving Beyond Tactics on Tuesday, April 4, 6:00 - 8:30 PM.
Advocacy in the Time of Trump: Moving Beyond Tactics
Political activism is trending in the U.S. and there’s no shortage of tips and tactics out there. The problem with diving straight into tactics - without understanding the rules of the political engagement - is that new activists can sabotage their own efforts. It’s like building a house starting with the roof or the sidewalls instead of the foundation.
The solution is training activists to understand the unstated foundational rules. By learning The Advocacy Framework, activists will be able to identify goals, pick a winning strategy, and employ the appropriate techniques naturally. Activists can then dramatically improve their effectiveness.
Participants learn:
Why credibility is critical
How to build political relationships & political capital
The keys to a successful ask
ABOUT OUR PRESENTER
Stefanie Coxe has over 15 years experience in politics and in the non-profit world. During that time she met a lot of people who couldn’t afford a lobbyist but still had a need and passion for advocacy. She formed her training and e-learning company, Nexus Werx LLC to teach non-profit leaders and small businesses how to lobby; individuals how to be effective activists; and first time candidates how to run for office. Stefanie is a 14th generation Cape Codder currently residing in Cambridge, MA. Learn more about her and her work at www.nexuswerx.com.
SCHEDULE
6:00-6:30 Socializing - bring your own dinner
6:30-8:30 Training and Q&A
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Erik Swyngedouw, “Insurgent Architects and the Spectral Return of the Political in the Post-Democratic City”
WHEN Tuesday, Apr. 4, 2017, 6:30 – 8:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Gund Hall, Piper Auditorium, 48 Quincy Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Art/Design
DETAILS “Since 2011, a seemingly endless proliferation of urban rebellions, sparked by a variety of conditions and unfolding against the backdrop of very different historical and geographical contexts, has profoundly disturbed the apparently cozy neoliberal status quo and disquieted various economic and political elites. The aftermath of such urban insurrections has provided the starting point for the arguments developed in this presentation. I proceed in four steps. First, I discuss the contested configurations of the processes of post-democratization. Next, I propose a series of theoretical and political arguments that help frame the evacuation of the properly political from the spaces of post-democratic policy negotiation on the one hand and the spectral re-emergence of the political on the other. In the concluding part, perspectives for re-vitalizing the political possibilities of a spatialized emancipatory project are presented.” Erik Swyngedouw is professor of geography at Manchester University. His research interests include political-ecology, hydro-social conflict, urban governance, democracy and political power, and the politics of globalization. He previously taught at Oxford University and held the Vincent Wright Visiting Professorship at Science Po, Paris, in 2014. He recently co-edited (with Japhy Willson) The Post-Political and Its Discontents: Spectres of Radical Politics Today (Edinburgh University Press, 2014). His new book with MIT Press, Liquid Power: Contested Hydro-Modernities in Twentieth-Century Spain, focuses on the issue of water and how it has been affected by emerging forms of social power in Spain.
Anyone requiring accessibility accommodations should contact the events office at (617) 496-2414 or events@gsd.harvard.edu.
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The Reality of CO2’s Influence on Sea-Level and Weather Events - GBTP Boston
Tuesday, April 4
6:30 PM to 9:30 PM
Lir Irish Pub & Restaurant, 903 Boylston Street, Boston, MA (map)
Tom Wysmuller will be discussing The Reality of CO2’s Influence on Sea-Level and Weather Events.
Thomas Wysmuller trained as a meteorologist at New York University and at the Royal Dutch Weather Bureau in Amsterdam. He then worked for five years at NASA before, during, and after the moon landings. A fuller biography can be found here at Heartland's International Conferences on Climate Change website (ICCC 12 being held March 23-24 in Washington DC).
Climate changes. Yes. But is it driven by human activity - is it "man made global warming?" This debate has been going on for decades, and it manifests itself in our governments (in)sincere attempt to "never let a [fabricated] crisis go to waste."
Mayor Marty Walsh and former Secretary of State John Kerry announced last June that Boston would host a climate summit between the US and China. (Mayor Walsh, Secretary Kerry Announce Boston Will Host 2017 US-China Climate Leaders Summit, City of Boston).
Boston has its own "Climate-Ready Boston" initiative to deal with the effects of Climate Change. In particular, they have Climate Projections (link) prepared by their own working group.
Tom Wysmuller will attempt to bring some sanity to the hyperbole which is commonplace in the political discussion and media today. With a change in administrations, President Trump has already removed references to Climate Change from the White House web site. That is a good start, but the debate (and most likely protest) will continue unabated.
This is a first in a series of discussions we will be hosting. Stay Tuned!!
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Ida Auken, the former Minister for the Environment in Denmark, to lead a discussion on changing environmental policies and politics
Tuesday, April 4
7 p.m.
Somerville Armory, 191 Highland Avenue, Somerville
Ms Auken, currently at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, is a young, dynamic leader who was the President of the European Union’s Minister Council on the Environment during the 2012 Rio + 20 negotiations that led to the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals. She is now leading the effort for Denmark to achieve 100% renewable energy for heat and power by 2030.
Come and participate in a lively discussion directly related to political decisions now being made concerning the future of our Commonwealth, our nation and our world.
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Seed: The Untold Story
Tuesday, April 4
7:00PM TO 9:00PM
Arnold Arboretum, Hunnewell Building, 125 Arborway, Jamaica Plain
Few things on Earth are as miraculous and vital as seeds. Worshipped and treasured since the dawn of humankind. In the last century, 94% of our seed varieties have disappeared. SEED: The Untold Story follows passionate seed keepers protecting our 12,000 year-old food legacy. As biotech chemical companies control the majority of our seeds, farmers, scientists, lawyers, and indigenous seed keepers fight a David and Goliath battle to defend the future of our food. In a harrowing and heartening story, these heroes rekindle a lost connection to our most treasured resource and revive a culture connected to seeds. SEED features Vandana Shiva, Dr. Jane Goodall, Andrew Kimbrell, Winona Laduke and Raj Patel. The screening will be followed by a discussion led by Barry Logan, Visiting Scientist, Arnold Arboretum, and Professor of Biology, Bowdoin College.
Free, registration requested
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Upcoming Events
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Wednesday, April 5
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vocalist/musician CASSANDRA WILSON
WHEN Wednesday, Apr. 5, 2017, 4 – 5:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Leverett Old Library, McKinlock Hall, 11 Mill Street (between Plympton Street and DeWolfe Street), Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Music
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Learning From Performers
SPEAKER(S) Moderated by Professor Ingrid Monson
COST Free and open to the public
CONTACT INFO 617-495-8676
DETAILS “A singer blessed with an unmistakable timbre and attack who has expanded the playing field” (Gary Giddins), Cassandra Wilson is an American jazz musician, vocalist, songwriter, and producer from Jackson, Mississippi who incorporates blues, country and folk music into her work. Designated a Jazz Master in Residence at Harvard, she will discuss her career and creative process during a conversation moderated by Ingrid Monson, Quincy Jones Professor of African and African American Music. Wilson will also appear in concert with the Harvard Jazz Bands on Saturday, April 8 at 8 pm, Sanders Theatre (ticket information TBA).
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Mind the Gap! Tax Incentives and Incentives for Manipulating Fuel Efficiency in the Automobile Industry (Shinsuke Tanaka)
WHEN Wednesday, Wed, April 5, 2017, 4:15 – 5:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Littauer-382, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Environmental Sciences, Lecture, Social Sciences, Sustainability
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Seminar in Environmental Economics and Policy
Harvard Environmental Economics Program
SPEAKER(S) Shinsuke Tanaka
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Reporting from China with David Barboza
4:15pm to 5:30pm
Harvard,Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Suite 200N, 124 Mt Auburn Street, Cambridge
Join David Barboza, correspondent for The New York Times, for a discussion about reporting from China.
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The energy/comfort nexus: Making buildings work for people and the planet
Wednesday, April 5
5:00p–6:00p
MIT, Building 66-110, 25 Ames Street Cambridge
Speaker: Gail Brager
Today, too many buildings harm the planet without properly serving their occupants. Buildings contribute roughly 40% of the total US greenhouse gas emissions, and 80% of their energy use is for heating, cooling, ventilating, and lighting. Yet research shows there are still high levels of occupant dissatisfaction with indoor environmental quality, and this can have profound impacts on people's health, comfort, performance, and overall well-being. Using a range of research examples, Professor Gail Brager's presentation will describe new ways of studying, designing, and operating buildings to improve both energy and comfort performance, which must be simultaneous goals of a high-performance building.
IHS Seminar Series
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): MIT Energy Initiative
For more information, contact: MITEI Events
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Visualizing for Justice – Creative, Critical and Contestational Mapping
April 5
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Emerson, Bordy Theater, 216 Tremont Street, Boston
A public event on data visualization and mapping for social justice in association with the American Association of Geographers sub conference
The rise of Big Data, freedom of information and user-friendly software has contributed to the popularity of infographics, data visualizations and mapping for civic engagement and advocacy. This surge in data visualization brings with it opportunities for information re-use, increased transparency, and new forms of civic participation. Yet visualizing data for social justice also comes with its own set of challenges . From issues of security and tracking down hard to find information, to the ethics of making infographics out of death and suffering, participatory practices of data visualization often take place on ambiguous ethical terrain.
This event is free, but you must register to attend.
Showcase
Short presentations of recent data visualization and mapping work from critical cartographers, journalists, designers and social justice campaigners will be followed by audience discussion. Together we will explore what it means to visualize for justice today.
Anna Feigenbaum / Bournemouth University Civic Media Hub / Mapping Tear Gas
Kade Crockford, ACLU of Massachusetts and Paola Villarreal, Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University / War on Drugs
Tim Stallman / Marian Cheek Jackson Center for Making & Saving History / The Northside Neighborhood Initiative
Mara Ferreri / Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona / Heygate Displacement
Alessandra Renzi / Northeastern University / Why Jakarta Floods
Lize Mogel / Counter-cartographer / Walking the Watershed
Catherine D’Ignazio / Emerson Engagment Lab / Boston Coastline Future Past
More coming soon!
Your work here!
Want to feature your maps & visualizations? We will have a running slideshow of social justice maps & visualizations at the event. To include your work in our slideshow:
Send one image of your work to catherine_dignazio@emerson.edu and akshaya_sawant@emerson.edu.
Your image should be a high quality (at least 1200px width, 72 dpi) JPG or PNG file, formatted for 16:9 aspect ratio.
Your image should include a caption IN THE IMAGE ITSELF that explains the project and links to your website or contact info.
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Parasites of Capital: Tales of Ecology, Disease, and Landscape in a Neoliberal Age
Wednesday, April 5
6:30p–8:00p
MIT, Building 3-270, 33 Massachusetts Avenue (Rear), Cambridge
Gregg Mitman
SARS. Avian influenza. Ebola. Transgressions across animal/human borders? Industrial diseases of our own making? Causal explanations abound. Ecological perspectives on emerging diseases proliferate, from the dynamics of host-microbe interactions to the cycles of global capital. But new forms of life and their ecological understandings have been emerging in industrial landscapes in the making for generations of humans and microbes. This talk explores how industrial hygiene, engineering, and film became integral to the infrastructure, logic, and imaginaries of development advanced by Firestone Plantations Company in Liberia and the ecological regimes of capital accumulation that created conditions of life conducive to a virus' emergence and spread.
Part of the MIT Department of Architecture Spring 2017 Lecture Series
MIT Architecture Lecture Series
Hosted by the History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture and Art Program
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Department of Architecture, School of Architecture and Planning
For more information, contact: Kathaleen Brearley
617-258-8439
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How Native Plant Cultivars Affect Pollinators
Wednesday, April 5
7:00pm to 8:30pm
Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge
Annie White, Ecological Landscape Designer & Adjunct Professor, University of Vermont
Initiatives to address pollinator decline are widespread and native plants are the preferred choice for pollinator habitat restoration. The growing demand for natives, coupled with a longstanding desire of horticulturalists for enhanced bloom, color, or other characteristics, has led to the increased selection and breeding of native cultivars. Although these cultivars are typically marketed for their ecological benefits, until now there have been no scientific studies to support or refute these claims. So are native cultivars as valuable in pollinator habitat gardens as the true native species? Annie White will help answer this question by sharing the results of four years of field data. Her research is groundbreaking and remarkable.
Annie White is the founder of Nectar Landscape Design Studio and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Vermont. She earned her MS in Landscape Architecture from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her recent PhD in Plant & Soil Science from the University of Vermont was focused on this exceptional new research on native plant cultivars.
More information at http://grownativemass.org/programs/eveningswithexperts
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The Man Who Was Too Free Documentary
Wednesday, April 5
7:30p–10:00p
MIT, Building 10-250, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
The story starts in the 1990s, when Boris Nemtsov was widely viewed as the future president of Russia. It ends in February of 2015,when he was assassinated on Moskvoretsky Bridge across from the Kremlin. Nemtsov is the only Russian politician to have left a significant mark on both eras: the 1990s, with their free press, political struggles, and low oil prices, and the 2000s, the time of stability and economic growth, but also the decline of political competition, growing censorship, street protests, and the invasion of Ukraine.
Web site: ruscon2016.scripts.mit.edu/nemtsov-movie
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Russian Connection
For more information, contact: Oles Shtanko
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Thursday, April 6 2:00PM to Friday, April 7 5:00PM
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STS Workshop: New Nuclear Imaginaries
HUCE Seminar Room 440, 26 Oxford Street, 4th Floor, Cambridge
RSVP by March 30 at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/new-nuclear-imaginaries-tickets-32701615412
Nuclear worlds today are at a crossroads. As infrastructures age, stockpiles and wastes accumulate, and technologies, materials and interpretations proliferate, we face questions about how to build a just and responsible future out of the ambiguous legacies we have inherited. The future presents challenges of imagination as much as of technology and policy.
HKS' Program on Science, Technology & Society hosts a special two-day workshop to address these challenges and consider possible solutions. Registration required by March 30th at nuclearimaginaries.eventbrite.com.
THURSDAY, APRIL 6th:
Opening Remarks
Sheila Jasanoff (Harvard Kennedy School)
Andy Stirling (University of Sussex, SPRU)
Session 1: Nuclear Pasts and Futures
Ulrike Felt (University of Vienna)
Sheila Jasanoff (Harvard Kennedy School)
Andrew Stirling (University of Sussex)
Matthew Bunn (Harvard Kennedy School)
Richard Lester (MIT)
FRIDAY, APRIL 7th:
Session 2: Concealments
Lynn Eden (Stanford University)
Scott Kemp (MIT)
Christopher Lawrence (Harvard, STS Program)
Rebecca Slayton (Cornell University)
Alex Wellerstein (Stevens Institute of Technology)
Session 3: Memory and Forgetfulness
Michael Dennis (Naval War College)
Egle Rindzeviciute (Kingston University, London)
Kyoko Sato (Stanford University, STS)
Sonja Schmid (Virginia Tech)
Session 4: Waste and Burial
Rod Ewing (Stanford University)
Peter Galison (Harvard University)
Allison Macfarlane (George Washington University)
Miranda Schreurs (TUM, Munich)
Session 5: Security and Sustainability Discourses in the 21st Century
Matthew Bunn (Harvard Kennedy School)
Sam Weiss Evans (Harvard University)
Peter Haas (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
Steven Miller (Harvard Kennedy School)
More details at nuclearimaginaries.eventbrite.com.
Co-sponsored by the Harvard University Center for the Environment, the Institute for Global Law and Policy, and the Weatherhead Center for Science and International Affairs.
Contact Name: Shana Ashar
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Thursday, April 6
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An acidifying ocean: Where might it lead?
Thursday, April 6
12:00-1:00pm
Tufts, Rabb Room, Lincoln Filene Center, 10 Upper Campus Road, Medford
Jan Pechekik, Department of Biology, Tufts University
The world's oceans are now 25-30% more acidic than they were a few hundred years ago, at the start of the Industrial Revolution. We're not talking about Boston Harbor here, we're talking about all the oceans in the world! More than 3200 research articles have been published on this topic over the past 10 years, concerning everything from the impact on coral reefs to effects on shell formation, reproduction, development, and behavior. Dr. Pechenik will talk about some of this work, and about the difficulties in understanding what the long-term consequences of ocean acidification might be. He will also make a tight connection between ocean acidification and global warming, something that more people need to know about.
Jan A. Pechenik is a member of the Tufts Biology Department, where he studies various aspects of the reproduction, development, metamorphosis, and behavior of marine invertebrates. One of his lifetime goals is to publish at least one research paper on every major animal group. Pechenik is the author of Biology of the Invertebrates, along with more than 125 research papers. He is also the author of A Short Guide to Writing About Biology, now in its 9th edition, and has more recently written an edited version of Charles Darwin's infamous Origin of Species, following the advice given in his Short Guide to make it more readable (The Readable Darwin, Sinauer Associates, Inc). He is currently funded by the National Science Foundation to study the impact of ocean acidification on a marine snail that is native to New England but which has now become a wildly successful invader in many other parts of the world.
Watch it live from your computer or smart phone:
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Karen Seto: Hidden Linkages between Urbanization and Food Systems
Thursday, April 6
3:00p–4:00p
MIT, Building 9-354, 105 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Karen Seto
From croplands to landfills, urban systems co-evolve with food systems. Rapidly urbanizing regions must systematically contend with agricultural land loss, increased meat consumption, diet diversification, and shifting patterns of food access and storage. Guest speaker Karen Seto will join for a joint Environmental Policy and Planning/Sam Tak Lee discussion on how urbanization science and urban planning can inform debates over food security and sustainability.
Karen Seto is the Associate Dean of Research, Director of Doctoral Studies, and a Professor of Geography and Urbanization Science at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She is an established leader in the area of urbanization and global change, with experience founding, chairing, and researching for groups such as Urbanization and Global Environmental Change, International Human Dimensions Programme, Future Earth, the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, the US National Research Council Committee to Advise U.S. Global Change Research Program, the NRC Committee on Pathways to Urban Sustainability, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Karen was the executive producer of 10,000 Shovels: Rapid Urban Growth in China, a documentary integrating multiple mediums and tools to highlight urban changes in China.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Department of Urban Studies and Planning, School of Architecture and Planning
For more information, contact: Ezra Glenn
617-253-2024
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Starr Forum: Brexit, Europe, and Trump
Thursday, April 6
4:30p–6:00p
MIT, Building E51-345, 2 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Jack Straw, Former British Foreign Secretary
John Whitaker "Jack" Straw is an English politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Blackburn from 1979 to 2015. Straw served in the Cabinet from 1997 to 2010 under the governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He held two of the traditional Great Offices of State, as Home Secretary from 1997 to 2001 and Foreign Secretary from 2001 to 2006 under Blair. From 2007 to 2010 he served as Lord Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Justice throughout Brown's Premiership. Straw is one of only three individuals to have served in Cabinet continuously under the Labour government from 1997 to 2010.
Free & open to the public | Refreshments served
Can't attend in person? Watch it on Facebook live or on-demand on YouTube.
For more information or accessibility accommodations please contact starrforum@mit.edu
CIS Starr Forum
A public events series on pressing issues in international affairs, sponsored by the MIT Center for International Studies.
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): Center for International Studies
For more information, contact:
617-253-8306
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Connecting with Boston’s Innovation Ecosystem
Thursday, April 6
5:30 pm - 6:30 pm
Venture Cafe at Cambridge Innovation Center, 5th floor, 1 Broadway, Cambridge
Kevin Wiant, Executive Director of the Venture Cafe Foundation, has extensive experience in the innovation community, and will be speaking about Boston‰۪s innovation ecosystem, it‰۪s history, and resources that are available for entrepreneurs and startups.
Website: http://www.vencaf.org/calendar
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Transforming the Way We Live, Work & Move: Wireless Power
Thursday, April 6
5:30p–8:30p
Wolf Greenfield 600 Atlantic Avenue, Boston
"We believe that "wireless charging" will just be viewed as "charging" over the next few years. Together, we're creating the new normal.Alex Gruzen, CEO, WiTricity
Ubiquitous computing and automotive electrification are creating a world where our smart devices and our cars become equally dependent on being charged and ready at all times. WiTricity's aim is to make charging just a natural act in the course of typical usage. WiTricity delivers the seamless convenience of wireless power at the same power level as plugging in. Freedom from wires has no boundaries - and the future of wireless power is here and now.
Attendees will:
Gain exposure to a compelling new area of energy innovation
Realize how wireless power offers new experiences
Explore fertile areas for complementary new entrepreneurship
Better understand how a cleantech venture transitions from academic research to start-up to industry catalyst
Moderator
Ben Freas, Principal Research Analyst, Navigant
Panelists
Marin Solja, Ph.D., Professor of Physics, MIT; Founder, WiTricity
Alex Gruzen, Chief Executive Officer, WiTricity
John Carney, Director of Licensing and Commercialization, Delphi
Francesco Italia, Group Vice President - Division General Manager, STMicroelectronics
Raza Haider, Vice President, Mob
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free for Students; $10 MITEF Members: $20 non-members
Sponsor(s): MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge
For more information, contact: Amy Goggins
617-253-3937
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RPP Colloquium Event: Beyond Militarization: The Role of Religious Communities in the Struggle for Justice and Peace
WHEN Thursday, Apr. 6, 2017, 6 – 8:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Sperry Room, Andover Hall, 45 Francis Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Religion
SPONSOR Religions and the Practice of Peace Initiative; Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government
CONTACT Ash Temin
DETAILS Religions and the Practice of Peace Colloquium Dinner Series
Space is limited. RSVP is required at https://harvard.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bEjlM396uGy9XqB
At a time when the White House proposes to increase military spending by $54 billion while slashing funds for social programs at home and humanitarian aid abroad, we recall the warning of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that a nation spending more money on the military than on social uplift "is approaching spiritual death." What role can religious communities play today in resisting war and militarism and working for social and economic justice?
Speaker
David Cortright, Director of Policy Studies and the Peace Accords Matrix, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame; Special Adviser for Policy Studies, Keough School of Global Affairs, University of Notre Dame
Moderator and Respondent
J. Bryan Hehir, Parker Gilbert Montgomery Professor of the Practice of Religion and Public Life, Harvard Kennedy School of Government; Secretary of Health Care and Social Services, Catholic Archdiocese of Boston
Speaker
David Cortright is the Director of Policy Studies and the Peace Accords Matrix at Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and Special Adviser for Policy Studies at the Keough School of Global Affairs. He is the author, coauthor or coeditor of 20 books, including Civil Society, Peace and Power (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016), Gandhi and Beyond (Paradigm, 2009) and Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas (Cambridge University Press, 2008). Cortright has written widely about nonviolent social change, peace history, nuclear disarmament, and the use of multilateral sanctions and incentives as tools of international peacemaking. Cortright has a long history of public advocacy for disarmament and the prevention of war. As an active duty soldier during the Vietnam War, he spoke against that conflict. He examined the history and impact of antiwar resistance in the military in his 1975 book, Soldiers in Revolt, republished in 2005. In 1978, Cortright was named executive director of SANE, the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy, which under his leadership grew from 4,000 to 150,000 members and became the largest disarmament organization in the United States. He helped to create and serves as cochair of Win Without War, a coalition of national organizations that opposed the invasion of Iraq and continues to work for demilitarized national security policies.
Moderator and Respondent
J. Bryan Hehir is the Parker Gilbert Montgomery Professor of the Practice of Religion and Public Life. He is also the Secretary for Health Care and Social Services in the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. His research and writing focus on ethics and foreign policy and the role of religion in world politics and in American society. He served on the faculty of Georgetown University (1984 to 1992) and Harvard Divinity School (1993 to 2001). His writings include: "The Moral Measurement of War: A Tradition of Continuity and Change; Military Intervention and National Sovereignty; Catholicism and Democracy;" and "Social Values and Public Policy: A Contribution from a Religious Tradition."
Cosponsored by the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. With generous support from the Rev. Karen Vickers Budney, MDiv ’91, and Mr. Albert J. Budney, Jr., MBA ’74.
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How We Can Build a People's Food System
April 6
630-8pm
Kickstand Cafe Arlington
RSVP at eeactionforum@equalexchange.coop
Equal Exchange needs you. We are taking a powerful, new step in building a system that connects our worker-owners, producer partners, and you to create a holistic democratic system. Equal Exchange is one of the most successful and largest cooperatives in the country and one of the largest Alternative Trade Organizations (ATO) in the world. As we celebrate our 30 year anniversary we are both proud of what we have accomplished and concerned for the future of our food system, and our world.
In the wider food system, corporations control everything from seeds to supply and prices, while relentlessly chipping away at the regulations that inform and protect consumers. They fight feverishly to prevent us from knowing if GMOs are present in our food. They continue to promote production methods that hasten the warming of the planet?a present-day threat to millions of small farmers and others around the world. And, corporations count on consumers remaining unorganized to maintain the
status quo.
Equal Exchange has launched a new initiative called the Equal Exchange Action Forum. This is Equal Exchange's new path that aims to build a democratic food system owned by people not corporations. We wish to create a system that values people over profit. To build an alternative to the conventional economic system we need citizen involvement to succeed. Now more than ever is the time to build solidarity in our current political context.
We have had physical and virtual events across the Northeast and Midwest and will continue to have more. Our Action Forum community spans four different time zones and reaches as far as New Zealand, U.K., and India. We have launched our online platform in which we have interactive discussions, provide exclusive content for members, and members have the opportunity to connect with each other to continue some of this work together. We are enthusiastic about this new initiative and believe this Action Forum will serve as a vehicle to work towards a just food system. You are truly joining us in the beginning of pioneering this movement. Please join us in realizing this dream. This work is not simple, it's not easy, but it is necessary, and it cannot succeed without us all working together.
This summer Equal Exchange is hosting our first-ever People's Food System Summit (PFSS). This will be the first gathering of the entire Equal Exchange community that connects all parts of our supply chain. Our goals are to organize Action Forum members, farmer partners, and worker-owners together in this physical space. We will be hosting workshops, a roastery tour and cookout at our headquarters. We will make plans for how we can organize to take back control of the food system, together.
This year we have begun to sow the seeds for a grassroots movement to build a truly democratic food system, and we need your participation. If you would like to the join Action Forum you can fill out your application at this link : http://equalexchange.coop/action-forum-application
Danielle Robidoux
Action Forum Organizer(774)-776-7407
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Friday, April 7
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Boston TechBreakfast: Kaminario, OutSystems, Palatine Analytics, Skelmet
Friday, April 7
8:00 AM
G2 Technology Group Inc., 320 Congress Street, 2nd Floor, Boston
Interact with your peers in a monthly morning breakfast meetup. At this monthly breakfast get-together techies, developers, designers, and entrepreneurs share learn from their peers through show and tell / show-case style presentations.
And yes, this is free! Thank our sponsors when you see them :)
Agenda for Boston TechBreakfast:
8:00 - 8:15 - Get yer Food & Coffee and chit-chat
8:15 - 8:20 - Introductions, Sponsors, Announcements
8:20 - ~9:30 - Showcases and Shout-Outs!
Kaminario: Kaminario K2 - Josh Epstein
OutSystems - Rodrigo Couthino
Palatine Analytics: Palatine - Archil Cheishvili
Skelmet: - Rain Wang
~9:30 - end - Final "Shout Outs" & Last Words Boston TechBreakfast Sponsors:
ConferenceEdge - EVENTS to the power of Edge
DLA Piper (Boston) - DLA Piper is a global business law firm that provides corporate, IP, capital raising and other legal advice to technology startups and high growth businesses.
G2 Tech Group - Managed DevOps for startups and small businesses
Talener - Talener is the country’s premier, highly specialized, technology staffing agency that matches top developers and engineers to leading start-ups, Fortune 500s, and multi-nationals.
hedgehog lab - hedgehog lab is a technology consultancy that designs and builds great apps for mobile
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Reducing the Spread of Fake News: Using AI to Nudge Human Behavior
Friday, April 7
10am
Harvard, CGIS Knafel K354, 1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
How can we we pro-socially influence machine behavior without access to code or training data? In a recent study, a community with 15m+ subscribers tested the effect of encouraging fact checking on the algorithmic spread of unreliable news, discovering that adjustments in the wording of this "AI nudge" could reduce the scores that shape the algorithmic spread of unreliable news by 2x. We found that we can persuade algorithms to behave differently by nudging people to behave differently.
How can we think about the politics and ethics of systematically influencing black box systems from the outside? This AI nudge was conducted using CivilServant, novel software that supports communities to conduct their own policy experiments on human and machine behavior–independently of online platforms. In this talk, hear the results of our experiment on reducing the spread of unreliable news, alongside reflections on the history and future of democratic policy experimentation.
Speaker: J. Nathan Matias is a Ph.D. candidate at the MIT Media Lab Center for Civic Media, an affiliate at the Berkman-Klein Center at Harvard, and founder of CivilServant. He conducts independent, public interest research on flourishing, fair, and safe participation online. His recent work includes research on online harassment prevention, harassment reporting, volunteer moderation online (PDF), behavior change toward equality (PDF), and online social movements (PDF).
Nathan has extensive experience in tech startups, nonprofits, and corporate research, including SwiftKey, Microsoft Research, and the Ministry of Stories. His creative work and research have been covered extensively by international press, and he has published data journalism and intellectual history in the Atlantic, Guardian, PBS, and Boston Magazine.
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Tufts Food Systems Symposium: INTERSECTIONS OF WASTE AND FOOD INSECURITY
Friday, April 7
10:00 am - 2:00 pm
Tufts, Breed Memorial Hall, 51 Winthrop Street, Medford
This symposium brings together practitioners, advocates, and researchers in the areas of food policy and anti-hunger work to discuss the paradoxes and challenges of a food system that produces both over-abundance and scarcity.
The keynote speaker will be Doug Rauch, former president of Trader Joe’s and founder of The Daily Table in Dorchester. Sasha Purpura, executive director of Food for Free, will join Doug in conversation after the keynote address.
There will be a panel discussion with community leaders, faculty, and students; facilitated table conversations over lunch; and a concluding poster session and mini-expo, providing an opportunity to talk with community and campus groups working on food waste and insecurity issues. If your group would like to participate, contact us at cathy.stanton@tufts.edu.
Sign up for email updates: http://tufts.us15.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=45e1e4aa071e12c2a9c78342f&id=0757365a84
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Utilizing Satellite Data for Air Pollution, Built Environment and Urban Heat Islands Health Effects Research
Friday, April 7
12:45pm
BU School of Medicine, L210, 715 Albany Street, Cambridge
Summary: Projections on population indicate that by 2050 approximately 7.4 billion people will reside in urban areas. Rapid urbanization is occurring in many countries with corresponding increases in prevalence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and cardiac-related mortality. As urban areas increasingly become home to larger populations it is important to understand the intra-urban variability of chemical and non-chemical stressors in the environment and progression towards cardiovascular mortality. The high spatial and temporal resolution of satellite data can be used to improve fine-scale exposure modeling to environmental stressors, especially in developing areas of the world. This presentation provides an introduction on where to download, how to process and apply satellite data for epidemiological studies using examples from research on associations between air pollution, built environment and extreme heat and cardiovascular disease.
Speaker Bio: Kevin J. Lane Jr. MA, PhD is a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Environmental Health at Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) where he works as a health disparities career development fellow in the Center for Research on Environmental and Social Stressors in Housing. His research interests are in examining health disparities in exposure to air pollution, nature and the built environment while integrating new GIS methods and remotely sensed satellite data to improve exposure assessment and enhance population health studies. Dr. Lane’s dissertation research was conducted at BUSPH where he was awarded an Environmental Protection Agency Science to Achieve Results (STAR) pre-doctoral fellowship to analyze the relationship between chronic exposure to ultrafine particulate matter and cardiovascular health as a member of the community assessment of Freeway Exposure and Health Study. He also was awarded a Yale Climate and Energy Institute postdoctoral fellowship to work at the intersection of science and policy examining the role of land-based mitigation strategies on urban heat island effects and health impacts. Dr. Lane also has an MA in Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning from Tufts University and over a decade experience in GIS working in city government, consulting and nonprofit sectors.
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IACS Seminar: Building A Machine Learning Health System
WHEN Friday, Apr. 7, 2017, 1 – 2 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Northwest B103, 52 Oxford Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Health Sciences, Information Technology, Lecture, Science
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Institute for Applied Computational Science at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
SPEAKER(S) Dr. Nigam Shah, Stanford University
COST Free and open to the public; No registration required.
CONTACT INFO Email: iacs-info@seas.harvard.edu
Phone: 617-496-2623
DETAILS In the era of Electronic Health Records (EHR), it is possible to examine the outcomes of decisions made by doctors during clinical practice to identify patterns of care—generating evidence from the collective experience of patients. We will discuss methods that transform unstructured EHR data into a de-identified, temporally ordered, patient-feature matrix. We will also review use-cases, which use the resulting de-identified data, for pharmacovigilance, to reposition drugs, build predictive models, and drive comparative effectiveness studies in a learning health system.
LINK http://iacs.seas.harvard.edu/event/building-machine-learning-health-system-dr-nigam-shah-stanford
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The Glass Walls of Fair Oaks Farms
Friday, April 7
2:30p–4:30p
MIT, Building E51-095, 2 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Seminar on Environmental and Agricultural History
Speaker: Timothy Pachirat, Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
My prior work (Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight) examines the kill floor of an industrialized slaughterhouse in order to explore how distancing and concealment work as mechanisms of power in modern society. In this talk, I consider a counter-case: a concentrated pig and dairy cow feeding operation (CAFO) that converted its concrete walls to glass in order to draw 130,000 visitors per year, generate many millions of dollars in tourist revenue, and convince the broader public that factory farms are good. What, I ask, might we learn from the glass walls of this factory farm about the capacity of transparency to reinforce, rather than disrupt, relationships of domination and oppression? And what, in turn, are the potential implications for those who rely, explicitly or implicitly, on making the unseen visible to catalyze social and political change?
Timothy Pachirat is the author of Every Twelve Seconds: Industrialized Slaughter and the Politics of Sight (Yale University Press, 2011).
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): History Office, Program in Science Technology and Society
For more information, contact: Margo Collett
617-253-4965
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Remembering the Victims of the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda: A Panel Discussion
WHEN Friday, Apr. 7, 2017, 4:30 – 6 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Belfer-400 Land Hall, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Ethics, Humanities, Law, Lecture, Poetry/Prose, Social Sciences, Special Events, Support/Social
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School
SPEAKER(S)
PANELISTS:
Mr. El Ghassim Wane - UN Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations
Mr. Michael Fairbanks - Merrimack Pharmaceuticals (worked extensively on Rwandan issues & sits on President Kagame’s advisory board)
Prof. Timothy McCarthy - Carr Center for Human Rights
Ms. Belise Rutagengwa - Survivor Rwandan Genocide & student at Tufts University
DETAILS Please join the Carr Center and a group of Rwandan students from Harvard University for a commemorative seminar in honor of the victims of the 1994 genocide of Rwandans. This seminar will include a panel discussion about crimes of genocide and how the global community can work together to prevent such atrocities from happening again in Rwanda and other countries. The distinguished speakers will engage in an open discussion on how the Rwandan people have transcended the tragedy and how their experience can help shape peacebuilding interventions in other countries in conflict.
LINK carrcenter.hks.harvard.edu…
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Saturday, April 8
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Global Brigades New England Conference
Saturday, April 8
BU, 8 Saint Mary's Street, Room PHO 201, PHO 202, PHO 203, PHO 205, PHO 206, PHO 210, and PHO 211, Boston
The Global Brigades New England Conference is an event that brings together students from campuses across the NE region. The goal of the conference is to have an open forum about sustainable global development and how that can be achieved in today's world. There will be multiple speakers at the conference, ranging from Global Brigades staff to local researchers who focus on problems facing the developing world. Students, faculty, and Boston residents are invited to attend this exciting event that will prove to be informative, thought provoking, and empowering. The conference will take place in multiple classrooms within the Photonics building including, PHO 201, PHO 202, PHO 203, PHO 205, PHO 206, PHO 210, and PHO 211.
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Urban Tensions Hackathon: Visualizing stories of cities and conflict
Saturday, April 8
9:00 AM to 4:00 PM (EDT)
Northeastern, 360 Huntington Avenue, Boston
From gentrification and increased evictions to trucks in the bike lane, Boston, like many cities, is filled with stories of urban tensions. But are there data to illustrate these conflicts? Can you find, merge and visualize data and other layers of information that can help reveal new, original insights about the city’s urban tensions?
On Saturday, April 8, from 9am to 3pm, Northeastern University will be hosting "Urban Tensions," a hackathon where participants will explore urban data – from crime to housing to transportation to energy – to tell compelling stories of cities and conflict.
Who can sign up and who will be there?
The event is open to both students and professionals from any field. It will be kicked off with lightning talks on urban data, evictions and gentrification by:
Howard Lim, manager of Boston’s Open Data Project
Christine Dixon, deputy director of Project Hope
Wenfei Xu, research associate at MIT’s Civic Data Design Lab.
What kind of stories are we looking for?
From the innovation district to East Boston, what does the push-and-pull between affordable housing and commercial real estate development look like?
Is Boston violent? Highlight the waxing and waning of crime across the city.
Quantify Boston’s aging infrastructure to pinpoint where it might fail first as well as where it's being updated.
How many bike lanes are overrun by 18-wheelers? Is there another way?
How will projects be judged?
A panel of Northeastern professors from across the College of Arts, Media and Design will judge the submissions. Projects will be judged on their originality, the rigor of their data sourcing and analysis, and the accuracy and appeal of their visual storytelling.
What are the prizes?
Annual Hubway bike-sharing memberships.
What kind of datasets are we talking about?
Boston approved building permits
Boston Hubway bicycle trip data
Boston homicides data
Boston crime incident reports (2015-now)
Cambridge daily traffic counts 1972-2017
Boston Metropolitan Area Planning Council housing data
2015 Greater Boston Housing Report Card
Housing a Changing City Boston 2030
Housing data 1950-2010
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Get Growing Day Celebration
Saturday, April 8
10-2pm
Cambridge Community Center, 5 Callender Street, Cambridge (near Central Square)
Join us for the 6th annual Get Growing Day Celebration at the upstairs from the winter farmer’s market.
Get Growing brings together gardeners, would-be gardeners, and anyone who wants to learn more.
We’ll have activities for everybody: start a seed, make a wildflower seed ball (to toss!), build a raised bed, watch bees, look through a microscope. Forage edibles in the neighborhood (at noon). Meet a chicken (about 11-1).
Learn about making compost, keeping bees, protecting trees, IDing weeds. Bring your gardening questions.
Connect with fun projects: glean veg for hunger relief, pull invasive weeds, learn to build healthy soil.
And swap! Bring plants, seeds, and garden/cooking books you don’t want and take away something new.
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Sunday, April 9
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South End Community Choice Energy House Party
Sunday, April 9
4:00 PM to 5:30 PM
Alma Dell Smith's Home, 539 Massachusetts Avenue, Apartment #1, Boston
Please join us on Sunday, April 9th to learn more about the work of the Boston Climate Action Network and our new community choice energy campaign.
A community choice energy plan will allow Boston's residential and small business electricity to come from clean energy sources for little to no extra cost. On April 9th, learn how you can support a City Council authorization to adopt a new energy plan that is better for the planet, cost effective, and protects residents.
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Monday, April 10
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People, Power and Change
Monday, April 10
12:30p–2:00p
MIT, Building 9-415, 105 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Marshall Ganz, Harvard University, trainer and organizer
Marshall Ganz has successful combined organizing, training and teaching for many years. He worked for 16 years with Cesar Chavez on the successful effort to organize and win legal recognition for the United Farm Workers, the first major union of agricultural workers in the US. He has also designed innovative voter mobilization strategies for local, state and national electoral campaigns. Ganz advocates for building leadership on multiple levels in social & political movements. He teaches strategies and approaches for leadership. One recent book is Why David Sometimes Wins: leadership, organization and strategy in the California farm workers movement.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Department of Urban Studies and Planning, School of Architecture and Planning
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Spiritual Activism: A Conversation with Ruby Sales
WHEN Monday, Apr. 10, 2017, 4 – 6 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Sperry Room, Andover Hall, 45 Francis Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Religion, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR The Susan Shallcross Swartz Fund; the HDS Academic Dean’s Fund for Faculty Support; and The Memorial Church at Harvard
CONTACT INFO HDS Dean's Office: 617.495.4513
DETAILS Join us for a conversation with Ruby Sales, public theologian,
founder and director of the Spirit House Project, and icon of the civil
rights movement.
A conversation addressing the questions:
What are the spiritual dimensions of our current crisis?
What are the spiritual implications of police violence against people of color, voter suppression, the scapegoating of immigrants and refugees, the opioid crisis, and the rise of white nationalism?
What spiritual work will help us re-imagine our democracy, link multiple struggles, protect human dignity, and cultivate solidarity?
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The Populist Challenge
WHEN Monday, Apr. 10, 2017, 4:15 – 6 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, 27 Kirkland Street, Adolphus Busch Hall at Cabot Way, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture
SPEAKER(S) Chantal Mouffe,
Professor of Political Theory, University of Westminster
DETAILS In this talk, Chantal Mouffe will examine the reasons for the rise of populist parties in Europe both in their right-wing and left-wing versions. She will argue that this 'populist moment' is the expression of resistances to the post-democratic condition which is the consequence of the hegemony of neo-liberalism.
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How your smart phone will allow America to cut its carbon emissions in half
Monday, April 10
6:00 pm
BU, HAR-212, 595 Commonwealth Avenue, HAR-212, Boston
Guest Speaker: Tommy Vitolo, Ph.D., will present the lecture "How your smart phone will allow America to cut its carbon emissions in half." Dr. Vitolo Vitolo is a senior associate at Synapse. He earned his Ph.D. in systems engineering from Boston University, and has more than eight years of professional experience as a consultant, researcher, and analyst. This lecture is open to the public.
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Life Resurrected: Traveling Backwards in Evolutionary Time
Monday, April 10
6:00 PM to 7:30 PM
Somerville Public Library, 79 Highland Avenue, Somerville
Come hear Harvard researcher and astrobiologist, Betul Kacar, talk about the origins of life on earth and the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe.
Only one history of life has been recorded on our planet, but can we reconstruct the contributing metabolic factors of this biological past? Is life the result of a fluke or an accident? What is the likelihood of life occurring elsewhere in the Universe?
To answer these questions, she combines computational and experimental tools and travels backwards in evolutionary time in the laboratory. She follows the evolutionary history of our DNA to unravel how the harsh conditions of our ancient planet shaped life to be the way it is today, and explores the varying roles of chance and necessity in life's evolution.
Betul Kacar is an astrobiologist who is interested in understanding life’s origins, evolution and possible existence elsewhere in the Universe. She earned her PhD in Biomolecular Chemistry from Emory University. She conducted her postdoctoral research as a NASA Astrobiology Institute Postdoctoral Fellow.
She is currently a Research Associate at Harvard University Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and a co-Principal Investigator with the ELSI Origins of Life Institute of Tokyo and the NASA Astrobiology Institute.
Her work on reconstructing ancient genes has been widely featured in BBC News, NOVA PBS, Popular Science and New Scientist. In 2015, she received the John Templeton Foundation Big Questions in Life Sciences Research Grant. In 2016, she was named 'Way Cool Scientist' by the Science Club for Girls in Cambridge, MA.
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Water Innovation Prize : Final Pitch Night
Monday, April 10
6:00p–8:30p
MIT, Building E14-SS648
The MIT Water Innovation Prize takes place throughout the academic year launching with the Kick-off dinner in the Fall. The second stage of the prize involves team formation, idea development, targeted workshops and business plan development. The prize culminates in the Final Pitch Night where teams pitch their ideas to a diverse group of students, faculty, industry professionals and a panel of judges and are awarded innovation grants totaling $30,000.
Web site: http://www.mitwaterinnovation.org/
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): MIT Water Club
For more information, contact: Krithika Ramchander
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Boston New Technology April 2017 Startup Showcase #BNT76
Monday, April 10
6:00 PM to 8:45 PM
Akamai Technologies, 150 Broadway, Cambridge
Akamai staff will be escorting attendees from the lobby up the stairs to the first floor, where you'll find our check-in table. Type the first few letters of your name on the screen and tap your name to print your name tag.
Free event! Come learn about 7 innovative and exciting technology products and network with the Boston/Cambridge startup community!
Each presenter gets 5 minutes for product demonstration and 5 minutes for Q&A.
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Tuesday, April 11
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Democracy against Domination: Power, Populism, and Resistance in the Era of Trump
WHEN Tuesday, Apr. 11, 2017, 12 – 1:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Suite 200N, 124 Mt Auburn Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR The Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation
SPEAKER(S) Speaker
K. Sabeel Rahman, Assistant Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School and Author of, "Democracy Against Domination"
Moderator
Jane Mansbridge, Charles F. Adams Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Values, Harvard Kenedy School
COST Free
DETAILS The election of Donald Trump has provoked high-stakes clashes over the future of our democracy. But many of the battles under way now were already driving American politics during and before the election: tensions about race, identity, and inclusion; about inequality and economic power; and about the very viability and efficacy of our democratic institutions themselves. How should we understand today's reemergence of an exclusionary, right-populism -- and the prospects for a more inclusive and egalitarian alternative? Why have conventional approaches to liberalism and governance failed to address these deeper structural challenges of inequality, exclusion, and accountability? How can American democracy address these deeper challenges going forward? What does a genuine bottom-up, participatory, inclusive, and equitable democracy look like in the aftermath of the inequality crisis and the rise of rightwing populism? Drawing on the arguments of his recent book, Democracy Against Domination, K. Sabeel Rahman addresses these topics and more.
Lunch will be provided.
LINK http://ash.harvard.edu/event/democracy-against-domination-power-populism-and-resistance-era-trump
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Starr Forum: Digital Innovation and Africa
Tuesday, April 11
12:00p–1:30p
MIT, Building E14-648, Silverman Skyline Room, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Speakers: Claude Grunitzky, Stephan-Eloise Gras, Dk Osseo-Asare
Is it helping solve development challenges?
A new kind of African citizenry is consolidating itself right now, and it has a lot to do with the Internet. With each new mobile phone, with each new wireless connection, with each new social media interaction, the continent continues to embrace the most disruptive digital technologies. The growing accessibility of digital solutions, many of them homegrown, provides new models and opportunities for self-organized communities, political activism, and economic growth. It also raises new questions: who is providing the access: governments, local telcos, or American conglomerates?
This roundtable at MIT will explore and interrogate the socio-economic, cultural and geopolitical consequences of Africa's leapfrog into new technologies.
Free & open to the public | Refreshments served
Can't attend in person? Watch it on Facebook live or on-demand on YouTube.
For more information or accessibility accommodations please contact starrforum@mit.edu
CIS Starr Forum
A public events series on pressing issues in international affairs, sponsored by the MIT Center for International Studies.
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): Center for International Studies, True Africa, and Africa 4 Tech
For more information, contact:
617-253-8306
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Afternoon talk with US Ambassador to Vietnam, Ted Osius and Chief of Staff & Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. Department of State, Jon Finer
Tuesday, April 11
4:15pm to 5:30pm
See also: Democratic Governance, 2017
Harvard, Wiener Auditorium, Taubman Building, 15 Eliot Street, Cambridge
Join US Ambassador to Vietnam, Ted Osius and Chief of Staff & Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. Department of State, Jon Finer for a discussion.
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Opportunity
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Discounted Solar for Somerville
As part of the State’s Solarize Mass program, local volunteers and the City of Somerville recently launched the Solarize Somerville campaign to make it easier and cheaper for residents and small businesses to install solar panels.
The program, which is offering information and guidance, free site consultations, and solar panel discounts through November, has set an ambitious goal to inspire at least 200 property owners to sign up for solar —and each of those private solar installations will also benefit the community directly. For every 400 kW in signed private contracts through the program, the program’s solar vendor SolarFlair will donate a system of up to 5 kW for a public or community purpose. All are invited to the program kickoff at a Meet the Installer event on Tuesday, July 26 at 6-7:30 p.m., 167 Holland St. Additional events on topics such as solar basics, financing, and solar for multifamily homes will be announced.
Unique to the program is its neighbor-to-neighbor approach: trained resident volunteers and a designated volunteer Solar Coach are available essentially as mentors. They can, for example, walk anyone through the process, provide general loan program and tax incentive information, and share their own solar experiences. The campaign’s webpage and blog offers useful information, tips, and a link to websites where you can estimate the solar potential of your home and roughly calculate how much solar could save you on your energy bills at www.somervillema.gov/sustainaville/solarize.
Somerville is one of the most urban communities ever to participate in Solarize Mass, which makes the neighbor-to-neighbor approach especially helpful due to some of the unique challenges here such as multi-family houses with more than one owner. Winter Hill resident Mary Mangan, the program’s volunteer Solar Coach, went through that process and is ready to share helpful tips.
"I'm excited to work with our eager volunteers to help our neighbors understand the benefits of solar power. As a co-owner of a two-family home with solar, I can also offer some insights about how that process went for us," said Mangan.
Also key to the program is the selection of a designated vendor, which allows the program to offer reduced cost installation through bulk purchasing. Through a competitive process, SolarFlair, based in Ashland, MA, was selected. They were also the selected installer for the communities of Arlington, Hopkinton, Mendon, Brookline, Carlisle-Chelmsford, Newton, and Quincy.
"We're excited to be the selected installer for Solarize Somerville, and look forward to speaking with any home or business owners that are interested in reducing their electric bills while also making a great investment," said Matt Arner, the owner and President of SolarFlair.
Quick facts:
Solar systems can be purchased outright (with a payback of about 4-5 years). The Mass Solar Loan program offers rates of 3.25% or less.
Or, for no money down owners can choose a power purchase agreement (PPA), where the system is owned and maintained by a third party, and residents buy back the electricity at a discounted price.
More on-site renewable energy is critical to reducing carbon emissions. It also saves money for residents.
Tax incentives for solar installations include:
Federal Tax Credit: A 30 percent federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) is available for qualified residential and commercial projects
Massachusetts Personal Income Tax Credit: The lesser of 15% of the total cost of the solar electric system or $1,000, for qualified clean energy projects
Five-year Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System (MACRS): Business owners can depreciate solar electric systems over a five-year schedule
For more information or to sign up for a free site consultation:
Visit the Solarize Somerville webpage at www.somervillema.gov/sustainaville/solarize for
Helpful information and FAQs
To contact a volunteer or Solar Coach Mary Mangan to discuss solar options and incentives
To set up an appointment for a free site consultation directly with SolarFlair
To find out about events
To volunteer for Solarize Somerville
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Where is the best yogurt on the planet made? Somerville, of course!
Join the Somerville Yogurt Making Cooperative and get a weekly quart of the most thick, creamy, rich and tart yogurt in the world. Members share the responsibility for making yogurt in our kitchen located just outside of Davis Sq. in FirstChurch. No previous yogurt making experience is necessary.
For more information checkout.
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Cambridge Residents: Free Home Thermal Images
Have you ever wanted to learn where your home is leaking heat by having an energy auditor come to your home with a thermal camera? With that info you then know where to fix your home so it's more comfortable and less expensive to heat. However, at $200 or so, the cost of such a thermal scan is a big chunk of change.
HEET Cambridge has now partnered with Sagewell, Inc. to offer Cambridge residents free thermal scans.
Sagewell collects the thermal images by driving through Cambridge in a hybrid vehicle equipped with thermal cameras. They will scan every building in Cambridge (as long as it's not blocked by trees or buildings or on a private way). Building owners can view thermal images of their property and an analysis online. The information is password protected so that only the building owner can see the results.
Homeowners, condo-owners and landlords can access the thermal images and an accompanying analysis free of charge. Commercial building owners and owners of more than one building will be able to view their images and analysis for a small fee.
The scans will be analyzed in the order they are requested.
Go to Sagewell.com. Type in your address at the bottom where it says "Find your home or building" and press return. Then click on "Here" to request the report.
That's it. When the scans are done in a few weeks, your building will be one of the first to be analyzed. The accompanying report will help you understand why your living room has always been cold and what to do about it.
With knowledge, comes power (or in this case saved power and money, not to mention comfort).
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Free solar electricity analysis for MA residents
Solar map of Cambridge, MA
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Hey Cambridge residents!
Did you know the City of Cambridge is trying to win the $5 million Georgetown University Energy Prize? It was created to develop a cleaner and more efficient energy future. Energy efficiency and conservation are the best ways to save energy and minimize environmental impact. In that effort, Cambridge is hoping all residents will get a no-cost energy assessment in order to make their homes more efficient and comfortable. Let us know you're interested here: http://cambridgeenergyalliance.org/sign-up-for-an-assessment
During the assessment, the energy specialist will:
Install efficient light bulbs (saving up to 7% of your electricity bill)
Install programmable thermostats (saving up to 10% of your heating bill)
Install water efficiency devices (saving up to 10% of your water bill)
Check the combustion safety of your heating and hot water equipment
Evaluate your home’s energy use to create an energy-efficiency roadmap
Again, let us know you're interested here: http://cambridgeenergyalliance.org/sign-up-for-an-assessment and someone will be in contact with you shortly to give you personally tailored contact information on how you can get your no-cost home energy assessment. Renters are also eligible!
Any action to save energy in the home will help Cambridge win this competition while protecting the environment. For additional ideas on how to save energy, please see the Cambridge Energy Alliance website at http://cambridgeenergyalliance.org/resources/interactivehome
Please share with your Cambridge friends and family and ask them to get a free energy assessment!
Want to be more involved? Become a neighborhood Block Captain! Block Captains help their community members sign up for and complete no-cost home energy assessments through the MassSave program. Our team will give you the tools and guidance needed to recruit neighbors to get an assessment and improve the efficiency of their homes. Participation is welcome at whatever level you are able to commit to.
If you are interested in becoming a Block Captain, please fill out the form at http://tinyurl.com/blockcaptainsurvey and someone from the Cambridge Energy Alliance will be in contact with you shortly. If you know someone who might be interested, please let them know about this opportunity!
Questions? Contact jnahigian@cambridgema.gov
Cambridge Energy Alliance
@cambenergy
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Sunny Cambridge has just launched! Sunny Cambridge is the city-wide initiative that makes it easy for all types of residents to get solar power for their homes. Cambridge has lined up local solar installers through the EnergySage Solar Marketplace, which helps you request, receive, and compare solar quotes 100% online with support available every step of the way.
The City of Cambridge is working on many levels to reduce energy use and GHG emissions to make the city more sustainable. As a semifinalist in the nationwide competition for the $5 million Georgetown University Energy Prize, Cambridge Energy Alliance is encouraging residents to take actions to save energy, save money, and protect the environment. Get involved by signing up for a no-cost home energy assessment at the Cambridge Energy Alliance home page (www.cambridgeenergyalliance.org/winit)
and going solar at http://www.sunnycambridge.org
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Cambridge Coalition Solar Access Campaign is part of the DOE SunShot Solar in Your Community Challenge with a goal of 40 new solar electric systems installed in Cambridge, with a focus on serving low-to-moderate income communities.
Coalition partners include Green Cambridge, which works to create a more sustainable city and to protect the environment for the health and safety of all, Resonant Energy, a community-based solar developer, Solstice, helping every single household in America go solar, and Sunwealth, a solar investment firm.
More information at http://www.resonant.energy/sap-overview/
hat tip Cambridge Civic Journal
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Cambridge Climate Change Game
Extending our work on face-to-face games, the MIT Science Impact Collaborative has developed a digital game on the health impacts of climate change that you can play alone on your computer or on your mobile phone. The game should take about 10-20 minutes. We would appreciate it if you could play the game at your convenience.
Play the game at http://www.doublecoconut.com/climate/
Any and all feedback on the game should be directed to Ella Kim at ella@mit.edu.
Thank you for your time and consideration!
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Sustainable Business Network Local Green Guide
SBN is excited to announce the soft launch of its new Local Green Guide, Massachusetts' premier Green Business Directory!
To view the directory please visit: http://www.localgreenguide.org
To find out how how your business can be listed on the website or for sponsorship opportunities please contact Adritha at adritha@sbnboston.org
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Boston Food System
"The Boston Food System [listserv] provides a forum to post announcements of events, employment opportunities, internships, programs, lectures, and other activities as well as related articles or other publications of a non-commercial nature covering the area's food system - food, nutrition, farming, education, etc. - that take place or focus on or around Greater Boston (broadly delineated)."
The Boston area is one of the most active nationwide in terms of food system activities - projects, services, and events connected to food, farming, nutrition - and often connected to education, public health, environment, arts, social services and other arenas. Hundreds of organizations and enterprises cover our area, but what is going on week-to-week is not always well publicized.
Hence, the new Boston Food System listserv, as the place to let everyone know about these activities. Specifically:
Use of the BFS list will begin soon, once we get a decent base of subscribers. Clarification of what is appropriate to announce and other posting guidelines will be provided as well.
It's easy to subscribe right now at https://elist.tufts.edu/wws/subscribe/bfs
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The Boston Network for International Development (BNID) maintains a website (BNID.org) that serves as a clearing-house for information on organizations, events, and jobs related to international development in the Boston area. BNID has played an important auxiliary role in fostering international development activities in the Boston area, as witnessed by the expanding content of the site and a significant growth in the number of users.
The website contains:
A calendar of Boston area events and volunteer opportunities related to International Development - http://www.bnid.org/events
A jobs board that includes both internships and full time positions related to International Development that is updated daily - http://www.bnid.org/jobs
A directory and descriptions of more than 250 Boston-area organizations - http://www.bnid.org/organizations
Also, please sign up for our weekly newsletter (we promise only one email per week) to get the most up-to-date information on new job and internship opportunities -www.bnid.org/sign-up
The website is completely free for students and our goal is to help connect students who are interested in international development with many of the worthwhile organizations in the area.
Please feel free to email our organization at info@bnid.org if you have any questions!
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Boston Maker Spaces - 41 (up from 27 in 2016) and counting: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zGHnt9r2pQx8.kfw9evrHsKjA&hl=en
Solidarity Network Economy: https://ussolidarityeconomy.wordpress.com
Bostonsmart.com's Guide to Boston: http://www.bostonsmarts.com/BostonGuide/
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Links to events at over 50 colleges and universities at Hubevents: http://hubevents.blogspot.com
Thanks to
Fred Hapgood's Selected Lectures on Science and Engineering in the Boston Area: http://www.BostonScienceLectures.com
MIT Events: http://events.mit.edu
MIT Energy Club: http://mitenergyclub.org/
Harvard Events: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/harvard-events/events-calendar/
Harvard Environment: http://environment.harvard.edu/events/calendar/
Sustainability at Harvard: http://green.harvard.edu/events
Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/
Eventbrite: http://www.eventbrite.com/
Microsoft NERD Center: http://microsoftcambridge.com/Events/
Startup and Entrepreneurial Events: http://www.greenhornconnect.com/events/
Cambridge Civic Journal: http://www.rwinters.com
Cambridge Happenings: http://cambridgehappenings.org
Cambridge Community Calendar: https://www.cctvcambridge.org/calendar
Take Action MA: http://takeactionma.com
If you have an event you would like to see here, the submission deadline is 12 PM on Sundays, as Energy (and Other) Events is sent out Sunday afternoons.
