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) EventsGeo
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Details of these events are available when you scroll past the index
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Index
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Monday, May 13
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10am Thesis Defense - Impacts of Emission Policies in China on Air Pollution and Human Health
12pm Program on Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate [PAOC Colloquium]: Kaighin McColl (Harvard University)
1pm Autonomous Mini-car race
2pm Urban Navigation Autonomous Vehicle Test Course Demos
4pm xTalk: iSSP: A Dynamic Interactive Textbook
5:30pm Understanding the diffusion of renewable energy technologies to developing countries: The role of project developers and multilateral development banks
5:30pm Towards Life 3.0 - Ethics and Technology in the 21st Century
5:30pm Launch Clinic: Internet of Things (IoT) Startups
6pm Lee McIntyre: The Scientific Attitude
6:30pm Social Media in Action Training
7pm No Visible Bruises: What We Don't Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us
7pm Inventor Talk: Patricia Nolan-Brown, inventor, author of "Idea to Invention”
7pm Road to a Green New Deal Tour Livestream
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Tuesday, May 14 - Thursday, May 16
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2019 Virtual Summit on AgTech: An Online Conference Expanding Access to Trends and Issues in the Field
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Tuesday, May 14
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12pm Climate Change Clergy
1pm Pollinator (& Insect) Survey at Fresh Pond
1pm Interconnection Forum
1:30pm EPA Region 1 Soak Up the Rain New England Webinar Series: Reaching Public Consensus: Stormwater Funding in Ashland, MA
3pm Venezuela: How did we get here, and what’s next?
5:30pm A Healthy Problem
6pm Mind and Matter: A Life in Math and Football
6pm Finding a “Healthy” Problem to Solve
6pm Science for the People Then and Now: Lessons from the Early Years
6pm The Age of Consequences: Climate Change Risks to Conflict and Security
6:30pm The Impact of Climate Change on Forest Ecosystems
6:30pm Getting to the Point with the authors of "The Hill to Die On”
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Wednesday, May 15
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7:30am Boston Sustainability Breakfast
7:30am Annual Bike Appreciation Breakfast
12pm Brown Bag Lunch: Offshore Wind 101
1pm Refuah Shleima - Healing Ourselves in a Time of Climate Disruption
3pm "The Human Element" Film Screening
5pm A ‘book talk’ featuring former AFL-CIO leader David Sickler
5:30pm Volunteer with Environmental Voter Project and Net Impact Boston!
6pm Creative City Boston Information Session
6pm The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775–1777
6pm Smart City & Urban Innovation: Demos & Drinks
6:15pm Poverty and Inequality in Boston: A Tale of Two Cities?
A Faith That Does Justice / Una Fe Que Hace Justice
7pm Everyday Chaos: A BOOK TALK WITH AUTHOR DAVID WEINBERGER AND JOI ITO
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Thursday, May 16
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7am BNI Innovation 2019 Kick Off!!
8:30am Business Opportunities in Advancing Sustainable Lifestyles in Greater Boston
8:30am New England - Germany Energy Transition Forum
12:15pm WMD Disposal, Destruction, and Disarmament: The Reduction Of U.S. Chemical and Nuclear Weapon Stockpiles
1pm COOKED: Survival By Zip Code Movie Screening, Dorchester
2:30pm Eli Yablonovitch: What New Device Will Replace the Transistor?
3pm Book Release Party: My Generation Can
6pm The Power of Images and Pictures an evening with Greg Marinovich
6pm The Arts and Crafts Houses of Massachusetts
6pm Making Dystopia - A Lecture by Professor James Stevens Curl
6pm Brown@65: We Can’t Afford to Retire
6pm COOKED: Survival by Zip Code Movie Screening, East Boston
6pm The Age of Living Machines: A Conversation with Susan Hockfield and Robin Young of NPR
7pm Eat Like a Fish with Bren Smith
7pm BostonTalks: Empowerment
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Friday, May 17
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7am Bike to Work Day 2019
7:30am EBC Climate Change Program: Early Actions to Mitigate Regional Coastal Flooding Risks
8:30am Design Museum Mornings: Designing a Healthier Society
8:30am Petrie-Flom Center Annual Conference: Consuming Genetics: Ethical and Legal Considerations of New Technologies
10:30am COOKED: Survival by Zip Code Movie Screening, Roxbury
6pm A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism
7pm The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age
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Saturday, May 18
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8am Mystic River Herring Run and Paddle
10am Extinction Rebellion Meeting
10am Poverty in Black Boston: A Public Town Hall Discussion and Seminar
11am Franklin Park Kite & Bike Festival
2pm Cyber Security for the 21st Century
2:30pm Show Addiction, Show Recovery: A Public Workshop
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Sunday, May 19
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4pm Extinction Rebellion May NVDA training sessions
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Monday, May 20
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6pm Developing an Ethical Food Statement
6pm Boston New Technology EdTech & CareerTech Startup Showcase #BNT101
6pm PINT OF SCIENCE Spotlight on the Brain: Myths, Measurements & Mysteries
6:30pm Truth Worth Telling: A Reporter's Search for Meaning in the Stories of Our Times
7pm A Socialist Defector: From Harvard to Karl-Marx-Allee
7pm JP Solar Happy Hour - May 2019
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Tuesday, May 21
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8:30am Elemental Series: Accelerating Science through Innovation
11am On the Brink: Saving our Right Whale, Saving our Ocean
1pm Askwith Forums – Behind the Numbers: The Boston Globe's Valedictorians Project
2pm A Dose of Reality Around AI and Manufacturing
2pm Ethics and Design Thinking: A 21st Century Craftsman
4:30pm AI Talks: Next Generation AI – Memory, Causation and Adaptability
6pm Pint of Science: The Future of Health: Science or Science Fiction?
6:30pm Getting to the Point with Governor Bill Weld
7pm What My Mother and I Don't Talk About
7pm Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass
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My rough notes on some of the events I go to and notes on books I’ve read are at:
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Monday, May 13
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Thesis Defense - Impacts of Emission Policies in China on Air Pollution and Human Health
Monday, May 13
10:00am to 11:00am
MIT, Building 54-915, 21 Ames Street, Cambridge
A public presentation of the thesis will be given by the candidate, Saied Mighani
DEFENSE CHAIR:
Prof. Andrew Babbin, MIT
THESIS COMMITTEE:
Prof. Noelle Selin, MIT, Advisor
Prof. Susan Solomon, MIT
Prof. Valerie Karplus, MIT
Copies of the thesis may be obtained from the EAPS Education Office (54-912). All interested faculty, staff and students are invited to attend.
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Program on Atmospheres, Oceans, and Climate [PAOC Colloquium]: Kaighin McColl (Harvard University)
Monday, May 13
12:00pm to 1:00pm
MIT, Building 54-915, 21 Ames Street, Cambridge
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Autonomous Mini-car race
Monday, May 13
1:00pm to 5:00pm
MIT, Stata Center (Building 32) basement, 32 Vassar Street, Cambridge
The final demo for RSS, Robotic,s: Science and Systems (6.141/16.405): a high-speed autonomous race with 1/10 mini-racecars and a set of final challenges, ranging from autonomous parking to fast obstacle avoidance and acrobatic maneuvers.
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Urban Navigation Autonomous Vehicle Test Course Demos
Monday, May 13
2:00pm to 3:00pm
MIT, Building 31 FIrst floor Beaver Works Lab, 70 Vassar Street (Rear), Cambridge
Autonomous mini-racecars from 16.405/6.141 ply an "urban environement" mockup in Building 31s new MIT/Lincoln Lab Beaver Works lab. The challenges will include:
3D mapping and autonomous parking
Lane following and traffic sign detection
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xTalk: iSSP: A Dynamic Interactive Textbook
Monday, May 13
4:00pm to 5:00pm
MIT, Building 3-133, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
In this xTalk, Ian (Ted) Young will speak on iSSP, his newly published interactive textbook.
The “classic” textbook is printed on paper and admits no possibility for displaying dynamic effects such as filtered music, cross-correlated images, or molecular motion. eBooks, particularly those in pdf format, do not significantly change this description. The modern digital tablet and digital smartphone offer the opportunity to not only display dynamic effects but to interact with the them to perform experiments. We have developed an app for both iOS and Android that exploits these possibilities. The theme of the textbook is an introduction to stochastic signal processing (iSSP).
Speech, music, seismic vibrations, oil prices, and climate measurements are all examples of stochastic (random) signals. In this introductory textbook—intended for individuals with prior training in introductory signal processing and introductory probability theory—we develop techniques to process such signals to extract useful information. We present case studies ranging from music to photographic images to oil prices to climate data to the motion of individual biomolecules. This textbook in an app format makes use of your device's ability to display dynamic information through films and animations and to hear the results of the techniques applied to music. At the end of every chapter there are homework problems ranging from easy to "olympic".
A new and exciting aspect is that we make use of the tablet's interactive capabilities to present laboratory experiments in signal processing. The experiments use the graphic interface, the microphone, the speakers, the camera, and the display to provide both input and output. These experiments are not simulations; they are examples of real digital processing of signals in the device.
The iOS version of the app is currently available on the Apple App Store and it is, for now, free. Search for “stochastic signal processing”.
Ian (Ted) Young is an MIT graduate and was Assistant Professor and then Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering from 1969-1979.
At Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands (1981 to present), Dr. Young has been Chairman of the departments of Applied Physics, Imaging Science & Technology, and (as interim) Bionanoscience, all in the Faculty of Applied Sciences.
Dr. Young also co-authored the textbook Signals and Systems and has authored over 200 scientific publications. In 2006 he was made Ridder in de Orde van de Nederlandse Leeuw, (Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion).
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Understanding the diffusion of renewable energy technologies to developing countries: The role of project developers and multilateral development banks
Monday, May 13
5:30 PM - 6:30 PM
MIT, Building E19-319, 400 Main Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Dr. Bjarne Steffen (ETH Zurich)
Abstract: The deployment of renewable energy technologies (RET) to developing countries has grown rapidly in recent years, supporting low-carbon development. At the same time, though, the diffusion of RET is not broad and fast enough to reach a pathway in line with the Paris Agreement. In context of this challenge, the presentation will cover two recent studies concerning the diffusion of RET to developing countries:
The first paper analyzes global patterns of market openings for wind, solar PV, and biomass. We use a mixed method design, based on a newly merged dataset encompassing eighty countries, and on interviews with pioneering project developers. Results highlight how patterns in market openings are shaped considerably by technology characteristics, and that international private developers are a key first mover in many developing countries. We explore drivers for this internationalization trend, and discuss policy implications.
The second paper focusses on the role of Multilateral development banks (MDBs). Despite MDBs’ importance in financing both fossil fuel-based power plants and RET, a comprehensive compilation of their power-generation investments over the years has been missing. To address this gap, we assess power-generation financing by all ten relevant MDBs during 2006–2015, in different regions, and through different branches of the banks. The study assesses technology choices by compiling a bottom-up dataset drawing information from 841 projects and programmes. We find that MDBs financed a major portion of all power-generation growth in the developing world, with an increasing share of renewables. However, MDBs have ‘greened’ their portfolios to different extents, and the activities of their public- and private-sector branches differ substantially.
Bio: Bjarne Steffen is a senior researcher and lecturer at ETH Zurich, and a visiting scholar at MIT CEEPR. His research addresses politics and policies related to low-carbon innovation in the energy sector. He is particularly interested in the role of financial actors (e.g., investors and banks) in the ongoing sustainable energy transition. To this end, he works at the intersection of economics, political science, and innovation studies. His research covers both developed and developing countries. Before joining ETH Zurich, Bjarne worked as principal in the Boston Consulting Group’s energy and infrastructure practices and was project manager for the Strategic Infrastructure Initiative at the World Economic Forum.
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Towards Life 3.0 - Ethics and Technology in the 21st Century
WHEN Monday, May 13, 2019, 5:30 – 6:45 p.m.
WHERE Harvard Kennedy School, Wexner 102, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Science, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Carr Center for Human Rights Policy
SPEAKER(S) Sarah Newman, Fellow, Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society
DETAILS "Towards Life 3.0: Ethics and Technology in the 21st Century" is a new talk series organized and facilitated by Mathias Risse, director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Philosophy and Public Administration. Drawing inspiration from the title of Max Tegmark’s book, "Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence," the series draws upon a range of scholars, technology leaders, and public interest technologists to address the ethical aspects of the long-term impact of artificial intelligence on society and human life.
Held on select Monday evenings at 5:30–6:45 p.m. in Wexner 102, and occasionally on other weekdays, the series will also be shared on Facebook Live and on the Carr Center website. A light dinner will be served.
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Launch Clinic: Internet of Things (IoT) Startups
Monday, May 13
5:30pm to 8:30pm
Cambridge Innovation Center, 5th Floor Havana Room One Broadway
Cost: $10 for Members; $30 Non-members: $10 for students; $5 for student members
At the Internet of Things Themed Launch Smart Clinic, startups present a 20-minute pitch for feedback from our panel of experts + the audience.
Launch Smart Clinics are a great place for startups to get constructive feedback on their pitch from a board-of-directors-level panel of experts and thoughtful audience members. The focus on early-stage ventures encourages a sympathetic and supportive atmosphere. Audience and panel feedback often helps presenters understand their problems and offers useful tips and solutions.
Even if you’re not quite ready to present, we encourage entrepreneurs to attend the clinics to see what our panel of experts (investors and others) are looking for in a pitch, what kind of questions they ask and their suggestions for refining the business plan.
Presenter
Jamshed Dubash, Business Development, Enterprise Retail, DeepMagic
Moderators
Nadia Shalaby, CEO, ITE Fund
Nikhil T. Pradhan, Associate, Foley & Lardner LLP
Launch Smart Schedule
5:30-6:00 pm – Networking + Pizza
6:00 -6:15 pm – Industry Overview (Expert Presentation)
6:20-6:40 pm – Startup 1 Presents
6:40-7:00 pm – Small Breakouts: Audience + Experts
7:00-7:15 pm – Experts Share Consolidated Feedback From Breakouts
7:15-7:30 pm – Networking Break
7:30-7:50 pm – Startup 2 Presents
7:50-8:10 pm – Small Breakouts: Audience + Experts
8:10-8:25 pm – Experts Share Consolidated Feedback From Breakouts
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Lee McIntyre: The Scientific Attitude
Monday, May 13
6:00pm to 7:00pm
MIT, Building N50, MIT Press Bookstore, 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Please join the MIT Press Bookstore in welcoming philosopher Lee McIntyre to discuss his upcoming book, The Scientific Attitude: Defending Science from Denial, Fraud, and Pseudoscience.
Attacks on science have become commonplace. In this book, Lee McIntyre argues that what distinguishes science from its rivals is what he calls “the scientific attitude”—caring about evidence and being willing to change theories on the basis of new evidence. McIntyre argues that the scientific attitude—the grounding of science in evidence—offers a uniquely powerful tool in the defense of science.
Lee McIntyre is a Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University. Formerly Executive Director of the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University, he has also served as a policy advisor to the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard and as Associate Editor in the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. He is the author of Dark Ages: The Case for a Science of Human Behavior and Post-Truth, both published by the MIT Press.
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Social Media in Action Training
Monday, May 13
6:30 PM – 9:30 PM EDT
The Democracy Center, 45 Mount Auburn Street, Cambridge
Cost: $5 – $80
The Democracy Center is launching a series of skills and professional development trainings! We aim to make convenient, more affordable opportunities available to Cambridge and Greater Boston nonprofits and grassroots organizations.
Our first partnership is with FANG Collective, a community based organization working at the meeting point between racial and environmental justice, who will bring their expertise in creating powerful social media campaigns to you!
In this 3 hour training, the FANG Collective will use interactive activities and their experience at the forefront of online storytelling to train participants in key social media concepts, how to tell your story of an event or action, and how to make effective graphics for your social media campaigns.
We will only host the training if 15 participants register. Registration is capped at 30. Refreshments provided.
Sliding scale:
Full organization rate: $80
Subsidized organization rate: $40
Full individual rate: $30
Low income rate: $10
Mobility Aid User rate: $5
More about the rates:
for the organizational rates, we intend these for people who are sending their employees, staff, or volunteers from an organization who is partially or wholly covering the cost
individual rates are for individuals who are not receiving financial support from an organization
since our space is not fully accessible to people who use mobility aids such as wheelchairs, scooters, etc, we are offering discounted tickets to those people.
If these rates are prohibitive, please email info@democracycenter.org, subject line "Social Media in Action Training Cost" and we can negotiate a scholarship for you or your organization.
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No Visible Bruises: What We Don't Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us
Monday, May 13
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store welcomes award-winning journalist RACHEL LOUISE SNYDER for a discussion of her latest book, No Visible Bruises: What We Don't Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us. She will be joined in conversation by SUZANNE DUBUS, the CEO of the Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center.
About No Visible Bruises
We call it domestic violence. We call it private violence. Sometimes we call it intimate terrorism. But whatever we call it, we generally do not believe it has anything at all to do with us, despite the World Health Organization deeming it a “global epidemic.” In America, domestic violence accounts for 15 percent of all violent crime, and yet it remains locked in silence, even as its tendrils reach unseen into so many of our most pressing national issues, from our economy to our education system, from mass shootings to mass incarceration to #MeToo. We still have not taken the true measure of this problem.
In No Visible Bruises, journalist Rachel Louise Snyder gives context for what we don't know we're seeing. She frames this urgent and immersive account of the scale of domestic violence in our country around key stories that explode the common myths—that if things were bad enough, victims would just leave; that a violent person cannot become nonviolent; that shelter is an adequate response; and most insidiously that violence inside the home is a private matter, sealed from the public sphere and disconnected from other forms of violence. Through the stories of victims, perpetrators, law enforcement, and reform movements from across the country, Snyder explores the real roots of private violence, its far-reaching consequences for society, and what it will take to truly address it.
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Inventor Talk: Patricia Nolan-Brown, inventor, author of "Idea to Invention"
Monday, May 13
7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
MIT, Building 4 - 231, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
The Inventors Association of New England presents Patricia Nolan-Brown, inventor, author of "Idea to Invention" http://www.patricianolanbrown.commore details to come.
Show up as early as 6:30pm for networking. Come get your invention questions answers no matter what stage you are in the invention process.
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Road to a Green New Deal Tour Livestream
Monday, May 13
7pm
Webinar
We're all sold out in DC, but you can tune in via livestream around the country. Sign up now and invite your friends over to join you.
We've got an amazing lineup of speakers and I'm positively thrilled to be joining them to launch the next phase of our campaign: putting together an unprecedented youth intervention to make sure the Green New Deal is at the center of the debate as the Presidential primary heats up with
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Sen. Bernie Sanders
Sen. Ed Markey
Judith Howell, SEIU 32BJ
Payton Wilkins, Historically Black College and Universities Climate Consortium
Naomi Klein, author and activist
Alexandra Rojas, Executive Director of Justice Democrats
Rhiana Gunn-Wright, policy lead for the GND, New Consensus
Jeremiah Lowery, DC environmental justice organizer and former city council candidate
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Tuesday, May 14 - Thursday, May 16
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2019 Virtual Summit on AgTech: An Online Conference Expanding Access to Trends and Issues in the Field
Tuesday, May 14 - Thursday, May 16
12pm each day
Webinar
RSVP at https://www.agtechsummit.org
Cost: $5 - whatever you wish to pay
The Tuck Business School at Dartmouth Is organizing an agriculture technology conference. Thought you all might be interested in participating! It will be held virtually May 14-16 (no travel required, just logging in via laptop), and all proceeds of the registration will be given to charity.
To register, visit: http://www.agtechsummit.org
Tuesday, May 14
Rethinking the Farm - Inputs, Automation, and Use-of-Space
Wednesday, May 15
Precision Agriculture and Analytics: Data, Machine Learning, and AI
Thursday, May 16
Cellular Agriculture and Biotech Innovation in Food
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Tuesday, May 14
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Climate Change Clergy
Tuesday, May 14
noon-1pm
Webinar
RSVP at jcan.intern@gmail.com
We are at an especially critical moment in the climate crisis. How do we grapple with the reality that humanity's actions and inactions now and in the next few years will be sealing the fate of Creation? The JCANetwork already includes many of your concerned members. This webinar supports Rabbinic leadership. In this webinar, Jewish Climate Action Network will offer two perspectives: Rabbi Katy Allen will lead a discussion of Support for Rabbis in This Time of Climate Crisis. And then Fred Davis will invite you to participate in Rabbis Rally for Radical Reduction.
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Pollinator (& Insect) Survey at Fresh Pond
Tuesday, May 14
1:00 PM – 3:00 PM EDT
Entrance to Fresh Pond Reservation across Wheeler, Wheeler Street, Cambridge
Join this incredible opportunity to connect with Nature, and to help the conservation of our urban wildlife habitats. We observe and collect information about pollinators (and more generally arthropods). We then feed that info to different global databases that are tracking species richness, population abundance, and phenophases.
Collecting such data is an important scientific effort that helps better understand the collapse of insect populations, that is being been observed throughout the world. That kind of data is critical to understand the implications on avian populations, other fauna at large, and on our own species (e.g., food security). A better understanding will lead to better societal actions and policies.
We will also develop together a virtual guide to the insects and wildlife of Fresh Pond.
Age: Adults (16+) & Seniors.
Rendezvous: At the entrance to the Lusitania woods, at the intersection of the Regional bike path connection and the entrance to the reservation across Wheeler street (see Map).
Details & Registration: This is an RSVP event. We need your registration so that we can communicate with you about what to wear and what to bring, as well as to be able to inform you if there is any change plan due to weather and other reasons. Thanks and register today!
For any question, you can contact Claire atcitizenscience@earthwiseaware.org
About our EwA at Fresh Pond Program »https://www.earthwiseaware.org/ewa-at-fresh-pond/
Free with a value: This event is free, still... donations to EwA are always welcomed! » Donate at https://www.earthwiseaware.org/donate
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Interconnection Forum
Tuesday, May 14
1:00 PM – 5:30 PM EDT
Foley Hoag, 155 Seaport Boulevard, #1600, Boston
Cost: $95 – $135
For those interested, there will be a networking lunch beginning at 12 for a small added cost. BE SURE TO SELECT OPTIONAL LUNCH AT REGISTRATION IF YOU PLAN ON ATTENDING LUNCH 12-1PM.
Solar developers and installers in Massachusetts are well aware that the interconnection process has become increasingly protracted and costly. Improving this process will be critical for the health of the State’s solar industry in the years ahead.
Featuring a keynote from TUE House Chair Tom Golden, join us for a series of panels and town hall discussions featuring John Abe of Sunwealth, Melissa Kemp of Cypress Creek, Courtney Feeley Karp of Klavens Law Group, Eric Graber-Lopez of BlueWave Solar, Jamie Dickerson of NECEC, Nathan Phelps of Vote Solar, Paul Renaud of Eversource, and Will Kern of National Grid. Find the full agenda here.
This forum, targeted at solar executives, development managers, and others involved in interconnection, will provide important background information and a critical opportunity to engage with colleagues on which issues are most urgent and what solutions might be put forward. The event will be facilitated by Dr. Jonathan Raab, who mediated the original development and subsequent revisions of the Massachusetts DG Interconnection standards & tariffs. Through presentations, interactive discussions and breakouts, the forum will seek to answer the following questions:
How did we get here?
The interconnection process has evolved considerably over the past decade; this event will provide a brief history of the DG interconnection tariffs, outline how they’ve changed and the process through which they’ve been modified.
What is the state of the grid in Massachusetts?
Most developers have encountered areas of grid saturation, often resulting in interconnection delay and the need for expensive area studies and system modifications; this event will provide a look at some of the technical challenges the grid is now facing and offer some insight into how the utilities are responding.
What are the key issues that must be addressed?
A core set of issues that currently inhibit solar interconnection will be presented, and all attendees will be invited to engage in a vigorous discussion on what the solar industry’s top interconnection-related priorities should be.
How do we solve the problems at hand?
The event will conclude with an interactive workshop for all attendees, intended to identify possible solutions for overcoming the key interconnection challenges we now face.
The issues and solutions referenced above will form the foundation for SEBANE’s advocacy efforts over the coming year. As such, this forum is a critical opportunity to provide input into the industry’s strategy for resolving interconnection issues, and an event you will not want to miss.
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EPA Region 1 Soak Up the Rain New England Webinar Series: Reaching Public Consensus: Stormwater Funding in Ashland, MA
Tuesday, May 14
1:30 PM-3:00 PM
Webinar
One of the greatest challenges for New England municipalities with a Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System (MS4) is reaching consensus on stormwater program funding to support implementation of permit requirements. During this webinar, three Town of Ashland officials will describe their experiences establishing a stormwater enterprise fund for their community. Presenters will discuss the drivers and key steps; their strategies and lessons learned; and their recommendations for program implementation and operation. The webinar will also explain the critical roles of stakeholder involvement, creative partnerships, and meaningful public outreach to generate support for funding solutions.
Presenters
Maeghan Dos Anjos, Conservation Agent/Director, Town of Ashland, Massachusetts
Rob St. Germain, Chair, Stormwater Advisory Committee, Town of Ashland, Massachusetts
Evan White, Project Engineer, Department of Public Works, Town of Ashland, Massachusetts
For more on Soak up the Rain: http://www.epa.gov/soakuptherain
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Venezuela: How did we get here, and what’s next?
Tuesday, May 14
3:00PM – 4:00PM ET
MIT, Building 3-270, Cambridge and broadcast live at https://www.povertyactionlab.org/d2p2
Roberto Rigobon, Society of Sloan Fellows Professor of Management and Professor of Applied Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management
The third constitution—ever—was written in Venezuela. Additionally, use of the term “social security” as a responsibility of the state was first introduced in Venezuela in 1818. Between 1945 and 1965, Venezuela had the second fastest growth rate in per capita GDP (after Japan), the second lowest inflation rate (after Germany), and the lowest interest rate, not to mention good weather (which clearly defines paradise). So what happened?
On May 14, Professor Roberto Rigobon of MIT Sloan will deliver the next talk in J-PAL’s Data, Decisions, Public Policy (D2P2) lecture series. Roberto will speak about the modern history of Venezuela, starting from when the country had little oil all to way up to the turmoil of today. He will discuss the current humanitarian crisis and possible alternatives moving forward.
Roberto Rigobon is the Society of Sloan Fellows Professor of Management and Professor of Applied Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is a Venezuelan economist with research interests in international economics, monetary economics, and development economics. His work focuses on the causes of balance-of-payments crises, financial crises, and the propagation of them across countries—the phenomenon that has been identified in the literature as contagion. He is one of the two founding members of the Billion Prices Project and a co-founder of PriceStats. Roberto is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, a member of the Census Bureau’s Scientific Advisory Committee, and a visiting professor at IESA School of Management in Venezuela.
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A Healthy Problem
Tuesday, May 14
5:30pm to 8:00pm
MIT EG&G Education Center, 34-101, 50 Vassar Street, Cambridge
What motivates an entrepreneur is passion, but what keeps them focused and makes them successful is having a true understanding of the problem or unmet need they are addressing. Hear two digital health entrepreneurs at different stages of their journey share their story. Learn to better understand when a passion is a real problem that can lead to a great start up. Our experts will also share their two different approaches to starting a company in healthcare.
You will learn:
How to engage hospitals and healthcare systems to help solve meaningful problems.
How an accelerator can benefit your team/product.
How patient satisfaction and health outcomes can drive success and scale.
What it takes to successfully integrate with larger digital health products.
Paola Abello, Director of Innovation at the Center for Primary Care, Harvard Medical School will chat with Sterling Lanier, CEO, Tonic Health, which is a is a real-time mobile data collection and payments platform that provides a seamless, easy and engaging way for patients to fill out any survey, sign any consent form or make any payment when and where it’s most convenient for them, and Akshaya Shanmugam, Co-founder & CEO, Lumme Labs is developing a cutting-edge addiction treatment platform by combining wearable technology, machine learning, and behavioral psychology.
Speakers
MODERATOR: Paola Abello, Director of Innovation at the Center for Primary Care, Harvard Medical School
SPEAKER: Sterling Lanier, CEO, Tonic Health
SPEAKER: Akshaya Shanmugam, Co-founder & CEO, Lumme Labs
Event Schedule
Registration & Networking: 5:30 - 6:00 PM
Welcome and Panel Discussion: 6:00 - 8:00 PM
Networking hour after the event: 8:00 - 9:00 PM
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Mind and Matter: A Life in Math and Football
Tuesday, May 14
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM
Boston Public Library, Rabb Hall, 700 Boylston Street, Boston
Join John Urschel and Louisa Thomas for a night of rich discussion about John's career and the couple's new book, Mind and Matter: A Life in Math and Football. This event is being held at the Boston Public Library, in Rabb Hall. 100 seats are ticketed, and each ticket comes with a copy of Mind and Matter that John will sign. To secure a ticketed seat, please visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mind-and-matter-book-launch-with-john-urschel-and-louisa-thomas-tickets-59124895153. Books can be picked up right outside Rabb Hall before or after the talk. Additional books will be available for purchase that night as well.
About the Book
For John Urschel, what began as an insatiable appetite for puzzles as a child quickly evolved into mastery of the elegant systems and rules of mathematics. By the time he was thirteen, Urschel was auditing college-level calculus courses. But when he joined his high school football team, a new interest began to eclipse the thrill he once felt in the classroom. Football challenged Urschel in an entirely different way, and he became addicted to the physical contact of the sport. Accepting a scholarship to play football at Penn State, Urschel refused to sacrifice one passion for another, and simultaneously pursued his bachelor's and then master's degrees in mathematics. Against the odds, Urschel found a way to manage his double life as a scholar and an athlete, and so when he was drafted to the Baltimore Ravens, he enrolled in his PhD at MIT.
Weaving together two separate yet bound narratives, Urschel relives for us the most pivotal moments of his bifurcated life. He explains why, after Penn State was sanctioned for the acts of former coach Jerry Sandusky, he turned his back on offers from Ivy League universities and refused to abandon his team, and contends with his mother's repeated request, at the end of every season, that he quit the sport and pursue a career in rocket science. Perhaps most personally, he opens up about the correlation between football and CTE, and the risks he took for the game he loves. Equally at home with both Bernard Riemann's notion of infinity and Bill Belichick's playbook, Urschel reveals how each challenge - whether on the field or in the classroom - has brought him closer to understanding the two different halves of his own life, and how reason and emotion, the mind and the body, are always working together. He asks why, "So often, people want to divide the world into two. Matter and energy. Wave and particle. Athlete and mathematician. Why can't something be both?"
About the authors
John Urschel is a former offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens and a PhD candidate at MIT. He has a bachelor's and master's degree in mathematics from Penn State, and in 2013, he won the Sullivan Award, given to "the most outstanding amateur athlete in the United States," and the Campbell Trophy, awarded to the country's top scholar-athlete in college football.
Louisa Thomas is the author of Louisa: The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams and Conscience: Two Soldiers, Two Pacifists, One Family--a Test of Will and Faith in World War I. She is a contributor to the New Yorker's website and a former writer and editor for Grantland. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, the New York Times, Vogue, and other places.
For John Urschel, what began as an insatiable appetite for puzzles as a child quickly evolved into mastery of the elegant systems and rules of mathematics. By the time he was thirteen, Urschel was auditing college-level calculus courses. But when he joined his high school football team, a new interest began to eclipse the thrill he once felt in the classroom. Football challenged Urschel in an entirely different way, and he became addicted to the physical contact of the sport. Accepting a scholarship to play football at Penn State, Urschel refused to sacrifice one passion for another, and simultaneously pursued his bachelor's and then master's degrees in mathematics. Against the odds, Urschel found a way to manage his double life as a scholar and an athlete, and so when he was drafted to the Baltimore Ravens, he enrolled in his PhD at MIT.
Weaving together two separate yet bound narratives, Urschel relives for us the most pivotal moments of his bifurcated life. He explains why, after Penn State was sanctioned for the acts of former coach Jerry Sandusky, he turned his back on offers from Ivy League universities and refused to abandon his team, and contends with his mother's repeated request, at the end of every season, that he quit the sport and pursue a career in rocket science. Perhaps most personally, he opens up about the correlation between football and CTE, and the risks he took for the game he loves. Equally at home with both Bernard Riemann's notion of infinity and Bill Belichick's playbook, Urschel reveals how each challenge - whether on the field or in the classroom - has brought him closer to understanding the two different halves of his own life, and how reason and emotion, the mind and the body, are always working together. He asks why, "So often, people want to divide the world into two. Matter and energy. Wave and particle. Athlete and mathematician. Why can't something be both?"
John Urschel is a former offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens and a PhD candidate at MIT. He has a bachelor's and master's degree in mathematics from Penn State, and in 2013, he won the Sullivan Award, given to "the most outstanding amateur athlete in the United States," and the Campbell Trophy, awarded to the country's top scholar-athlete in college football.
Louisa Thomas is the author of Louisa: The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams and Conscience: Two Soldiers, Two Pacifists, One Family--a Test of Will and Faith in World War I. She is a contributor to the New Yorker's website and a former writer and editor for Grantland. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, the New York Times, Vogue, and other places.
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Finding a “Healthy” Problem to Solve
Tuesday, May 14
6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
MIT, Building 34-101, EG&G Education Center, 50 Vassar Street, Cambridge
Pre-registration is required
$25 Members; $25 Livestream Members; $45 Non-Members: $45 Livestream Non-Members; $10 Students; $10 Livestream Students; $5 Student Members; $5 Livestream Student Members
This event will be live streamed - select the live stream ticket option @ checkout if you would like to watch the event online.
If you registered for the live stream, you'll be emailed a link & password between 5:30PM & 6:00PM on the day of the event
What motivates an entrepreneur is passion, but what keeps them focused and makes them successful is having a true understanding of the problem or unmet need they are addressing. Hear two digital health entrepreneurs at different stages of their journey share their story. Learn to better understand when a passion is a real problem that can lead to a great start up. Our experts will also share their two different approaches to starting a company in healthcare.
You will learn:
How to engage hospitals and healthcare systems to help solve meaningful problems.
How an accelerator can benefit your team/product.
How patient satisfaction and health outcomes can drive success and scale.
What it takes to successfully integrate with larger digital health products.
Paola Abello, Director of Innovation at the Center for Primary Care, Harvard Medical School will chat with Sterling Lanier, CEO, Tonic Health, which is a is a real-time mobile data collection and payments platform that provides a seamless, easy and engaging way for patients to fill out any survey, sign any consent form or make any payment when and where it’s most convenient for them, and Akshaya Shanmugam, Co-founder & CEO, Lumme Labs is developing a cutting-edge addiction treatment platform by combining wearable technology, machine learning, and behavioral psychology.
Speakers
MODERATOR: Paola Abello, Director of Innovation at the Center for Primary Care, Harvard Medical School
SPEAKER: Sterling Lanier, CEO, Tonic Health
SPEAKER: Akshaya Shanmugam, Co-founder & CEO, Lumme Labs
Event Schedule
Registration & Networking:6:00 - 6:30 PM
Welcome and Panel Discussion: 6:30 - 8:00 PM
Networking hour after the event: 8:00 - 9:00 PM
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Science for the People Then and Now: Lessons from the Early Years
Tuesday, May 14
6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
MIT, Building 4-237, 182 Memorial Drive (Rear), Cambridge
Please join us for reflections by members of Science for the People in the 1960s-1980s and intergenerational dialogue about lessons for organizing.
Our panelists will address questions such as:
What motivated them to get involved?
What were the original Science for the People’s achievements and failures?
What did they learn that is relevant to organizing today?
What were their fears and sources of inspiration as they diverged from mainstream science and became activists?
Like our Facebook page for updates and future events: facebook.com/sftpboston.
Send a message to sftp.boston@gmail.com to get involved in Boston Science for the People!
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The Age of Consequences: Climate Change Risks to Conflict and Security
Tuesday, May 14
6:00 pm to 9:00 pm
BU, 121 Bay State Road, Boston
Join New England International Donors and the Pardee School for a special screening of the Age of Consequences, a documentary that investigates the impacts of climate change on increased resource scarcity, migration, and conflict through the lens of US national security and global stability.
Through unflinching case-study analysis, distinguished admirals, generals and military veterans take us beyond the headlines of the conflict in Syria, the social unrest of the Arab Spring, the rise of radicalized groups like ISIS, and the European refugee crisis – and lay bare how climate change stressors interact with societal tensions, sparking conflict.Whether a long-term vulnerability or sudden shock, the film unpacks how water and food shortages, drought, extreme weather, and sea-level rise function as ‘accelerants of instability’ and ‘catalysts for conflict’ in volatile regions of the world.
The movie is approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes long and will be followed by a discussion on how donors can fund and engage at the intersections of climate change, health, and migration.
Speakers will include Pardee School Dean Adil Najam and Sophie RobinsonExecutive Producer and Director of Outreach at PF Pictures.
This event is by invitation only.
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The Impact of Climate Change on Forest Ecosystems
Tuesday, May 14
6:30PM
Belmont Media Center, 9 Lexington Street, Belmont
Adrien Finzi, Ph.D., Professor of Biology, Boston University, Finzi Lab
Dr. Finzi explains the fascinating complexity of forest ecosystems –plants, creatures, soil, microbes– and the importance of such systems for the preservation of life on Earth. He describes how human activity has changed the delicate balance of these ecosystems. This discussion provides a truly integrated profile of how forest ecosystems work and why we must protect them.
More information at http://scienceforthepublic.org/earth/the-impact-of-climate-change-on-forest-ecosystems
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Getting to the Point with the authors of "The Hill to Die On"
Tuesday, May 14
6:30 PM – 8:00 PM EDT
Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, 210 Morrissey Boulevard, Boston
Cost: $0 – $28
Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer, coauthors of Politico Playbook, will join Steve Scully, Political Editor, C-SPAN, for a discussion of their inside account of President Trump’s first two years in the White House as viewed from Capitol Hill. From negotiations with congressional leaders over the government shutdown to the Supreme Court confirmation hearings, "The Hill to Die On" offers an inside look at the defining moments and power struggles that have roiled Congress under the Trump Administration.
A book signing will follow and copies of "The Hill to Die On" will be available for purchase at the Institute’s gift store on the night of the program.
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Wednesday, May 15
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Boston Sustainability Breakfast
Wednesday, May 15
7:30 AM – 8:30 AM EDT
Pret a Manger, 101 Arch Street, Boston
Join us every month for Net Impact Boston's informal breakfast meetup of sustainability professionals for networking, discussion, and moral support. It's important to remind ourselves that we are not the only ones out there in the business world trying to do good! Feel free to drop by Pret a Manger any time between 7:30 and 8:30 AM.
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Annual Bike Appreciation Breakfast
WHEN Wednesday, May 15, 2019, 7:30 – 9:30 a.m.
WHERE Harvard, Dudley House, 1351-1443 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Classes/Workshops, Special Events, Sustainability, Wellness/Work Life
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR CommuterChoice
COST Free
CONTACT INFO commuterchoice@harvard.edu
DETAILS Celebrate Bike Week!
Join us at our annual bike appreciation breakfast. Grab breakfast and coffee, network with fellow bikers, speak with local organizations, DIY bike tune ups and win free prizes!
Track your rides in the MassCommute Bicycle Challenge #MCBC2019
Brown Bag Lunch: Offshore Wind 101
Wednesday, May 15
12:00 PM – 1:30 PM EDT
CIC Boston, 50 Milk Street, 5th Floor Windrose, Boston
The offshore wind industry had grown in leaps and bounds in the U.S. over the past few years, with a particular focus on the Northeast. Our next brown bag lunch will feature insights from Fara Courtney, Principal Consultant at Outer Harbor Consulting, who is also a founder of the US Offshore Wind Collaborative. Her clients include the Partnership for Offshore Wind Energy Research (POWER-US); Tufts University Dept. of Civil Engineering; U Mass Lowell Center for Wind Energy and the U.S. Dept. of Energy. She will talk about the latest developments in the U.S. market, as well as the challenges and opportunities for innovation in this exploding field.
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Refuah Shleima - Healing Ourselves in a Time of Climate Disruption
Wednesday, May 15
1:00 - 2pm
Webinar
RSVP at jcan.intern@gmail.com
This is an online conversation series for those struggling with despair and seeking resiliency and a way forward into an unknown future sponsored by the Jewish Climate Action Network of Boston. Hosted by Rabbi Katy Allen, co-founder and President pro-tem of the Jewish Climate Action Network and spiritual leader of Ma’yan Tikvah - A Wellspring of Hope
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"The Human Element" Film Screening
Wednesday, May 15
3:00pm to 4:30pm
MIT, Building E14: Media Lab, 3rd Floor Atrium, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge
On Wednesday, May 15th, at 3pm, the Space Enabled Research Group is hosting a screening of the 2018 documentary The Human Element. It tells the story of ordinary Americans dealing with the results of the feedback loops connecting human activity and the environment.
The screening will be in the E14 3rd Floor Atrium. Seating is free and first-come-first-serve. We hope that you join us for this screening!
We humans are a force of nature. At the same time human activities alter the basic elements of life – earth, air, water, and fire – those elements change human life.
In an arresting new documentary from the producers of RACING EXTINCTION, THE COVE and CHASING ICE, environmental photographer James Balog captures the lives of everyday Americans on the front lines of climate change. With rare compassion and heart, THE HUMAN ELEMENT inspires us to reevaluate our relationship with the natural world.
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A ‘book talk’ featuring former AFL-CIO leader David Sickler
Wednesday, May 15
5:00 PM – 6:30 PM EDT
SEIU Local 32BJ, 26 West Street, Boston
Join SEIU Local 888 and Jobs with Justice for a conversation with David Sickler, one of the most creative and successful union organizers in the country. Starting out working on an assembly line in Colorado’s Coors Brewery, Sickler went on to lead breakthrough campaigns that transformed the US labor movement and to become an influential labor advocate within Los Angeles City Hall.
This book captures some of Sickler’s historic campaign victories, from his leadership of the national Coors Boycott to unprecedented organizing drives with immigrant workers, often in direct challenge to the leadership of US labor. The revitalization of the California labor movement is integrally linked to this new wave of immigrant workers, and it was Sickler who built the foundation for organizing the new working class.
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Volunteer with Environmental Voter Project and Net Impact Boston!
Wednesday, May 15
5:30 PM – 7:30 PM EDT
55 Court Street, Suite 520, Boston
Volunteer alongside the Net Impact Boston community at the Environmental Voter Project (EVP) office in downtown Boston.
EVP Info: The Environmental Voter Project uses big-data analytics to identify inconsistently voting environmentalists and applies cutting-edge behavioral science to turn them into more consistent voters. EVP is a non-partisan nonprofit organization. EVP does not endorse candidates or tell people how to vote. Instead of trying to influence particular elections, EVP aims to fundamentally change the electorate so that policy makers respond accordingly.
Texting info: We will be texting inconsistently voting environmentalists in Pennsylvania for their statewide primary on May 21st. These smaller, off-year elections help us build up the voting habits of EVP's targeted environmentalists.
It's going to be a blast!
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Creative City Boston Information Session
Wednesday, May 15
6:00 PM – 7:00 PM EDT
Roxbury Innovation Center, Bolling Building, 2300 Washington Street, 2nd Floor, Roxbury
Artists! Interested in applying to Creative City Boston? Come to an information session to learn more about the program and new application process.
Creative City Boston Artist Grants provide project-specific funding to artists to create work that sparks public imagination, inspires community members to share in civic experience, and seizes opportunities to creatively engage important conversations taking place in Boston’s communities.
NEW APPLICATION PROCESS
The New England Foundation for the Arts is launching a new two-phase application process for Creative City Boston Grants.
Deadline for artists to submit concept proposals is June 17, 2019, 11:59 PM Eastern
To learn more about the program, go to: www.nefa.org/CreativeCityBoston
May 15, 2019 | 6-7 PM
Roxbury Innovation Center | 2300 Washington Street, 2nd Floor, Roxbury, MA 02119
Doors will be open at 5:45 PM. Feel free to come early to settle in, have some snacks and meet other attendees. We will start promptly at 6:00 PM.
CONTACT: creativecity@nefa.org | 617.951.0010 x532
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The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775–1777
Wednesday, May 15
6:00 PM (Doors at 5:30)
Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge
Cost: $6 - $42.50 (book included) - On Sale Now
Harvard Book Store welcomes Pulitzer Prize–winning military historian RICK ATKINSON—bestselling author of The Liberation Trilogy—for a discussion of his new book and the first volume of The Revolution Trilogy, The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775–1777. This event is co-sponsored by Mass Humanities.
About The British Are Coming
Rick Atkinson, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning An Army at Dawn and two other superb books about World War II, has long been admired for his deeply researched, stunningly vivid narrative histories. Now he turns his attention to a new war, and in the initial volume of the Revolution Trilogy, he recounts the first twenty-one months of America’s violent war for independence.
From the battles at Lexington and Concord in spring 1775 to those at Trenton and Princeton in winter 1777, American militiamen and then the ragged Continental Army take on the world’s most formidable fighting force. It is a gripping saga alive with astonishing characters: Henry Knox, the former bookseller with an uncanny understanding of artillery; Nathanael Greene, the blue-eyed bumpkin who becomes a brilliant battle captain; Benjamin Franklin, the self-made man who proves to be the wiliest of diplomats; George Washington, the commander in chief who learns the difficult art of leadership when the war seems all but lost. The story is also told from the British perspective, making the mortal conflict between the redcoats and the rebels all the more compelling.
Full of riveting details and untold stories, The British Are Coming is a tale of heroes and knaves, of sacrifice and blunder, of redemption and profound suffering. Rick Atkinson has given stirring new life to the first act of our country’s creation drama.
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Smart City & Urban Innovation: Demos & Drinks
Wednesday, May 15
6:00 PM to 8:00 PM
PTC, 121 Seaport Boulevard, Boston
During this Smart City & Urban Innovation: Demos and Drinks, we will showcase the smartest tech in Boston with an inclusive expo complemented by drinks and networking! Bring a friend, enjoy a drink, and get an inside look into the products and services further connecting Boston.
RSVP now and join Tech in Motion Boston on Wednesday, May 15th at PTC's beautiful, new office in the Seaport. This event will provide quality networking opportunities and give you a chance to meet some great local technologists and entrepreneurs from the area.
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Poverty and Inequality in Boston: A Tale of Two Cities?
A Faith That Does Justice / Una Fe Que Hace Justice
Wednesday, May 15
6:15 PM to 8:00 PM (EDT)
Courtyard Marriott Downtown Boston, 275 Tremont Street, (near the Boylston St/Green Line and New England Medical Center/Orange Line T Stations), Boston
As income inequality continues to plague Boston and other major cities in the US, the question is not just how we got here, but what are the impacts to both society and the individual - and what can we do about it? Join us for a discussion about:
How income inequality impacts access to opportunities
Programs and policies to reduce and eliminate inequalities
What you can do as an individual to address this injustice
We welcome to lead this discussion:
Mary Jo Bane, Harvard Kennedy School Thornton Bradshaw Professor of Public Policy and Management, formerly Assistant Secretary for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
John F. Barros, City of Boston, Chief of Economic Development
Deborah Kincade Rambo, President and CEO of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Boston
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Everyday Chaos: A BOOK TALK WITH AUTHOR DAVID WEINBERGER AND JOI ITO
Tuesday, May 14
7:00 PM - 8:30 PM ET
Harvard Law School, Wasserstein Hall, Milstein West, 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
What's Happening to the Future?
The Internet and AI are not only changing the future, they're changing our ideas about how the future arises from the present. With this comes changes in some of our most basic and ancient strategies for surviving, managing, and thriving.
In his new book, Everyday Chaos, David Weinberger points to accepted ways we work on the Internet that in fact undo our old assumptions about how the future works: rather than attempting to anticipate what will happen and prepare for it, the Internet is training us to flourish by creating more and more unfathomable possibilities. The Net has also lowered the cost of operating without principles, hypotheses, or even hunches about what will work.
AI in the form of machine learning now is providing us with a model -- a model of models -- of how the future happens, with implications that range from how businesses make decisions to how we think about strategy, progress, explanations, morality, and even the nature of meaning itself.
These changes can be "metaphysically terrifying," Weinberger says, but ultimately are an evolutionary step of a Copernican magnitude.
About David
From the earliest days of the Web, David Weinberger has been a pioneering thought leader about the Internet’s effect on our lives, on our businesses, and most of all, on our ideas. He has contributed in a range of fields, from marketing to libraries to politics to journalism and more.
He has contributed in a remarkably wide range of ways as well: through books that explore the meaning of our new technology; as a writer for publications from Wiredand Scientific American to Harvard Business Review and even TV Guide; as an acclaimed keynote speaker around the world; a strategic marketing vice president and consultant; a teacher; an Internet adviser to presidential campaigns; an early social-networking entrepreneur; a strategic marketing consultant and VP; the codirector of the groundbreaking Harvard Library Innovation Lab; a writer-in-residence at a Google AI lab; a senior researcher at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society; a fellow at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy; a Franklin Fellow at the US State Department; and always a passionate advocate for an open internet.
Dr. Weinberger received a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Toronto, and an honorary Doctor of Letters from Simmons College.
About Joi
Joichi "Joi" Ito is an activist, entrepreneur, venture capitalist and scholar focusing on the ethics and governance of technology, tackling complex problems such as climate change, societal inequity and redesigning the systems that support scholarship and science. As director of the MIT Media Lab and a Professor of the Practice in Media Arts and Sciences, he supports researchers at the Media Lab to deploy design, science, and technology such AI, cryptography, and synthetic biology to transform society in substantial and positive ways.
Together with The Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi, Ito teaches Principles of Awareness, a class devoted to exploring the contribution that awareness and focus can bring to the creative process.
Ito is a member of the 2017 class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a Visiting Professor of Law from Practice at the Harvard Law School, where he and Professor Jonathan Zittrain teach The Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence.
Ito is chairman of the board of PureTech Health and was previously the board chair and chief executive of Creative Commons. He serves on the boards of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and The New York Times Company. In Japan, he was a founder of Digital Garage and helped establish and later became CEO of the country's first commercial Internet service provider.
Ito also was an early investor in numerous companies, including Flickr, littleBits, Optimus Ride, FormLabs, Kickstarter, and Twitter.
In 2011, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oxford Internet Institute. He received an honorary Doctor of Letters from The New School in New York City in 2013 and two years later, an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Tufts University. In 2017, he received the IRI Medal.
He earned a PhD from Keio University Graduate School of Media and Governance in 2018 for his thesis, The Practice of Change, which is being edited into a book to be published by MIT Press. He serves as a distinguished researcher at the Keio Research Institute at SFC's Internet and Society Laboratory.
Ito is co-author with Jeff Howe of Whiplash: How to Survive Our Faster Future (Grand Central Publishing, December 2016), and he writes a monthly column for WIRED magazine.
Please join us in person for this special book launch event featuring Berkman Klein Fellowship Advisory Board member, David Weinberger. A reception next door will immediately follow the book talk. Books will be available for sale at event.
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Thursday, May 16
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BNI Innovation 2019 Kick Off!!
Thursday, May 16
7:00 AM – 9:00 AM EDT
WeWork, 77 Sleeper Street, Boston
Are you looking to grow your business? Increase referrals? Build a strong network of professionals? And put more money in your pocket? Perfect, us too!
Please join the members of the Seaport BNI chapter, BNI Innovation, as they kick off Spring 2019.
We invite you to come, mingle, network, eat breakfast, and if you like us apply to join! We are looking to grow our group, all are welcome.
We look forward to seeing you there!
How can I contact the organizer with any questions?
For questions plesae email mary.cafferty@libertymutual.com or nicole@peterkinfinancial.com
WeWork is a global network of workspaces where companies grow together. Teams of any size can find refreshingly designed collaborative space, private offices, and meeting rooms that energize their employees and their guests. But WeWork is so much more than four walls—providing community, amenities, events, and technology to evolve space into experience.
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Business Opportunities in Advancing Sustainable Lifestyles in Greater Boston
Thursday, May 16
8:30 AM – 1:30 PM EDT
UMass Boston, Morrissey Boulevard, Boston
Cost: $0 – $40
The recent IPCC report on climate change clarifies the urgency of rapid decarbonization of the economy. Recent research demonstrates that changes in lifestyles will be needed in addition to a transition to clean energy. According to EPA, 42% of our GHG emissions are associated with the energy used to produce, process, transport, and dispose of the products we use. This is a challenge but also an opportunity for companies to recognize the market opportunities in a) launching new business models, and b) supporting their employees in pursuing more sustainable lifestyles, which are associated with greater engagement and wellbeing.
The Aim: Develop a Toolkit with Actions and Indicators to Advance Sustainable Lifestyles
In a recent report by One Earth, five lifestyle domains are identified where concrete actions can promote sustainable lifestyles and carbon emission reductions: food, mobility, consumer goods, housing, and leisure (including tourism). The aim of this workshop is to select priority areas for Greater Boston in which concrete progress can be made; to develop ideas for businesses to implement these through new business models and employee engagement; to consider ways to measure progress through indicators; and to identify opportunities for enacting supporting governmental policies at various levels. The workshop will build on previous work such as Imagine Boston 2030, Carbon Free Boston, the EU Sustainable Lifestyles 2050 Project, the EU Indicators for Sustainable Cities report, UNEP/One Earth Sustainable Lifestyles in the Workplace, and the IGES study on carbon footprints.
The workshop
Short plenary introductions by speakers on the topic of prioritizing actions, implementation pathways, and measuring progress (speakers include Carl Spector, Commissioner of the Environment, City of Boston; Brooke Nash, Massachusetts Dept. of Environmental Protection; Sasha Purpora, Food for Free; Paul Eldrenkamp, Byggmeister Builders; and Sanchali Pal, Joro)
Focused/facilitated small group discussions on a specific topic (e.g., food, mobility, housing, consumer goods, and leisure)
Small group reporting back
Plenary closing and discussion of next steps.
Who should attend?
Large companies with commitments to sustainability, waste reduction and employee wellbeing; small and large companies with innovative products and services focused on waste prevention, product reuse or remanufacturing; NGOs and foundations with interests in sustainability; policymakers at all levels; academics and students.
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New England - Germany Energy Transition Forum
Thursday, May 16
8:30 AM – 5:30 PM EDT
Harvard Law School, Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East ABC, 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/new-england-germany-energy-transition-forum-tickets-59674085797
The New England – Germany Energy Transition Forum will take place on Thursday, May 16th, 2019 at Harvard Law School by courtesy of the Environmental and Energy Law Program. Hosted by the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) in partnership with the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi), the forum offers an opportunity for officials from government, industry and academia to discuss shared energy challenges, pursue urgent action on climate change mitigation, integrate lessons learned in Germany and New England and incorporate best practices. Industry leaders from both countries will discuss recent developments and challenges in the energy transition including the rapid increase of renewables, power sector decarbonization, heating sector innovation, clean transportation and offshore wind. The event is organized by adelphi and the German American Chamber of Commerce.
Agenda:
8.30 am: Registration
8:50 am: Opening Remarks
Matthew Beaton, Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Massachussetts
Nicole Menzenbach, Consul General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Boston
9:10 am: Introductory Keynotes
Thorsten Herdan, Director General, German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy
Ari Peskoe, Director, Electricity Law Initiative, Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program
9.30.am: Power sector decarbonisation: achievements so far, next steps and long term vision
Moderator: Ari Peskoe, Director, Electricity Law Initiative, Harvard Law School | Environmental and Energy Law Program
Dirk Biermann, Chief Markets & System Operations Officer, 50Hertz (German Transmission System Operator)
Jesse Jenkins, Postdoctoral Environmental Fellow, Harvard University
Prof. Miranda Schreurs, Chair of Environmental and Climate Policy, Technical University of Munich University for Applied Sciences
Gordon Van Welie, President and CEO, ISO New England
10.45 am: Coffee break
11.15 am: Innovation in the heating sector
Moderator: Michael Stoddard, Executive Director, Efficiency Maine
Don Chahbazpour, Director, Gas Utility of the Future, National Grid
Beverly Craig, Senior Program Manager, Masschusetts Clean Energy Center
Thorsten Herdan, Director General for Energy Policy, Heating and Efficiency, Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi)
Gerhard Stryi-Hipp, Head of Group »Smart Cities«, Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems
12.30 pm: Lunch
1.30 pm: Clean Transport of the Future
Thomas Raffeiner, CEO The Mobility House
Jonathan Schrag, Deputy Administrator, Division of Public Utilities and Carriers, Rhode Island
Rainer Stock, VKU (German Association of Local Utilities)
Will Lauwers, Director of Emerging Technology, Department of Energy Resources, Massachusetts
2.45 pm: Offshore wind deployment – technical progress, power system integration and social acceptance
Moderator: Dietmar Rieg, President & CEO, German American Chamber of Commerce, Inc. in New York
James Bennet, Chief of the Office of Renewable Energy Programs, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM)
Holger Grubel, Head of Offshore Wind Portfolio, EnBW
Lars Thaaning Pedersen, CEO of Vineyard Wind
Frank Wester, Senior Manager Asset Management Offshore, Tennet
4 pm: Short coffee break
4.15 pm: State representatives roundtable
Moderator: David Littell, Principal, Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP), former Maine DPU commissioner
Kate Dykes, Commissioner, Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, Connecticut
Thorsten Herdan, General Director, German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy
Judith Judson, Commissioner, Massachusetts Department of Energy Resource
June Tierney, Commissioner, Vermont Department of Public Service
5.15 – 6.15 pm: Networking Reception
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WMD Disposal, Destruction, and Disarmament: The Reduction Of U.S. Chemical and Nuclear Weapon Stockpiles
WHEN Thursday, May 16, 2019, 12:15 – 2 p.m.
WHERE Harvard, One Brattle Square, Room 350, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR International Security Program
SPEAKER(S) Cameron Tracy, Stanton nuclear security postdoctoral fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom
CONTACT INFO susan_lynch@harvard.edu
DETAILS Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first-come, first-served basis.
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COOKED: Survival By Zip Code Movie Screening, Dorchester
Thursday, May 16
1:00 PM – 3:30 PM EDT
The Salvation Army Ray and Joan Kroc Corps Community Center, 650 Dudley Street, Boston
*FILM STARTS AT 1 PM*
Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand takes audiences from the deadly 1995 Chicago heat disaster deep into one of our nation’s biggest growth industries - Disaster Preparedness. Along the way she forges inextricable links between extreme weather, extreme disparity and the politics of ‘disaster’; daring to ask: what if a zip code was just a routing number, and not a life-or-death sentence?
Adapted from HEAT WAVE: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago by Eric Klinenberg.
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Eli Yablonovitch: What New Device Will Replace the Transistor?
Thursday, May 16
2:30 PM – 3:30 PM EDT
MIT Building 34-401, Grier Room, 50 Vassar Street, Cambridge
The transistor has been with us for over 70 years, and during that time it has changed civilization, but it is now time for an improvement.
The transistor has a flaw. It’s not very sensitive. It relies upon the Boltzmann factor, which demands almost 1 volt to turn the transistor switch off and on.
In contrast, electrical noise should allow operation of an electrical switch with only ~10mVolts, a voltage reduction of 100x, and a power reduction improvement of 10^4x. This has occupied the leading electronic companies and researchers who would become ecstatic with only a 2x improvement, but even that has been elusive. The speaker will welcome suggestions for overcoming this problem!
In the meantime, a number of imaginative avenues are being pursued in the fields of nano-mechanics, nano-photonics, and nano-magnetism, but the most comprehensive candidate is electronic quantum tunneling between two sharp quantum states, for switching. Thus the spectral shape of these quantum levels, and indeed spectroscopy, now enters into electronics. We find that a revision of Fermi’s Golden Rule is needed to correctly identify the spectral line-shape that would produce a sharp and sensitive switch.
This event is free and open to the public. Advance registration required.
ABOUT THE MIT.nano PERSPECTIVES SERIES
“There is plenty of room at the bottom”, an idea introduced by Richard Feynman in 1959. Ever since, developments in nanoscale science and technology have lead to rapid interdisciplinary advancements in the fields of materials, devices, biotechnology and instrumentations. MIT.nano is pleased to offer a new seminar series, organized by assistant professor Farnaz Niroui, to continuously explore these frontiers.
The seminar series will offer monthly talks at MIT, starting in Fall 2019, from researchers across the spectrum of nanoscience and nanoengineering. To lay the foundation for this series, Niroui has organized an introductory set of lectures this spring by experts who have played seminal roles in the progress of our understanding of the nanoscale in each of key areas over the past decades.
Entitled "Perspectives in Nanotechnology," these lectures will offer insight into current research and future directions by the experts based on their experiences in the field. Mr. Howe's lecture is the first of this set.
Each talk will last approximately 45 minutes long and will be followed by a 30-minute question-and-answer session and a reception with refreshments.
Visit mitnano.mit.edu to see the full list of speakers for the five Perspectives lectures being offered this spring.
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Book Release Party: My Generation Can
Thursday, May 16
3:00 PM to 4:30 PM (EDT)
Northeastern, McLeod Suites, Curry Student Center, 360 Huntington Avenue, Room 318, Boston
826 Boston presents:
My Generation Can: Public Narratives for Community Change
Join us to celebrate the release of My Generation Can, an 826 Boston Young Authors' Book Project written by seniors at the Edward M. Kennedy Academy for Health Careers, featuring a foreword by State Senator Sonia Chang-DÃaz.
The release party will feature readings from the book, refreshments, and an opportunity to get your book signed by our published authors. This event is free and open to the public, but an RSVP is required.
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The Power of Images and Pictures an evening with Greg Marinovich
Thursday, May 16
6-7:30 p.m.
Suffolk, Sargent Hall, Fifth Floor Commons, 120 Tremont Street, Boston
“The Power of Images and Pictures.” An evening with Greg Marinovich, a South African photojournalist, filmmaker, photo editor, and member of the Bang Bang Club. Marinovich co-authored the book, The Bang Bang Club: Snapshots from a Hidden War, which details South Africa’s transition from Apartheid to democracy. In 1991, Marinovich won a Pulitzer Prize in Spot News Photography for a series of photographs of supporters of South African National Congress brutally murdering a man they believed to be a Zulu spy.
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The Arts and Crafts Houses of Massachusetts
Thursday, May 16
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM EDT
Cambridge Historical Society, 159 Brattle Street, Cambridge
Meticulously researched and with abundant color photos, this book focuses on the state’s Arts and Crafts domestic architecture and is the only one to include an illustrated field guide. In this talk, Heli Meltsner will help us identify qualities of this difficult-to-describe movement. At least two of the state's most prominent architects chose to build Arts and Crafts houses for their own families in Cambridge, although it was in a tough competition with other popular architectural styles at the time. At the turn of the twentieth century, Cambridge residents commissioned architects to build excellent examples of the new style. Most of these houses will be used to illustrate how to recognize this style.
Heli Meltsner, a historic preservation expert, has served on the Cambridge Historical Society Council since 2010 and, until 2019, was the Society's Curator. Meltsner has written the book The Poorhouses of Massachusetts: A Cultural and Architectural History (2012) and contributed to the Society’s Rediscovering the Hooper-Lee-Nichols House (2010) and Saving Cambridge: Historic Preservation in America’s Innovation City (2013).
Free and open to the public.
RSVP required. Space is limited.
Light refreshments will be served.
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Making Dystopia - A Lecture by Professor James Stevens Curl
Thursday, May 16
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM EDT
The College Club of Boston, 44 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston
Cost: $15 – $35
Join the New England Chapter of the ICAA The College Club of Boston for a lecture by distinguished architectural historian James Steven Curl on his new book, Making Dystopia. Making Dystopia tells the story of the advent of architectural Modernism in the aftermath of the First World War, its protagonists, and its astonishing, almost global acceptance after 1945. He argues forcefully that the triumph of architectural Modernism in the second half of the twentieth century led to massive destruction, the creation of alien urban landscapes, and a huge waste of resources. Moreover, the coming of Modernism was not an inevitable, seamless evolution, as many have insisted, but a massive, unparalleled disruption that demanded a clean slate and the elimination of all ornament, decoration, and choice.
Tracing the effects of the Modernist revolution in architecture to the present, Curl argues that, with each passing year, so-called "iconic" architecture by supposed "star" architects has become more and more bizarre, unsettling, and expensive, ignoring established contexts and proving to be stratospherically remote from the aspirations and needs of humanity. In the elite world of contemporary architecture, form increasingly follows finance, and in a society in which the 'haves' have more and more, and the "have-nots" are ever more marginalized, he warns that contemporary architecture continues to stack up huge potential problems for the future, as housing costs spiral out of control, resources are squandered on architectural bling, and society fractures. Curl’s message contains salutary warnings that we ignore at our peril. And it asks awkward questions to which answers are long overdue.
Professor James Stevens Curl is a leading British architectural historian, Member of the Royal Irish Academy, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and Fellow of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland. He read for his Doctorate at University College London, was twice Visiting Fellow at Peterhouse, Cambridge, and won The British Academy President’s Medal for ‘outstanding service to … the humanities’.
He has an international reputation for ‘thoroughness of research, impeccable scholarship, and lucidity of style’: one eminent critic described his works as combining ‘wit with compassion, the art … of the great humourists’, evident in his wide-ranging scholarly publications. His Oxford Dictionary of Architecture (with Susan Wilson) was hailed as ‘the finest in existence’.
His Making Dystopia: The Strange Rise and Survival of Architectural Barbarism is a passionate critique of why towns today are so unpleasant: he castigates those who can only look with their ears.
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Brown@65: We Can’t Afford to Retire
WHEN Thursday, May 16, 2019, 6 – 8 p.m.
WHERE Harvard Law School, Wasserstein Hall, 2019 Milstein West A, 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Education, Law
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice at Harvard Law School; Massachusetts Bar Association; the Sillerman Center at Brandeis
SPEAKER(S) Anurima Bhargava, President, Anthem of Us
Donna Bivens, Education justice coordinator, Union of Minority Neighborhoods
Susan Eaton, Professor of the practice and director, Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy, Brandeis University
Justin Hansford, Associate professor of law and executive director, Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center, Howard University
Moderator: Matt Cregor, Staff attorney, Mental Health Legal Advisors Committee
Moderator: David J. Harris, Managing director, Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice
COST Free
DETAILS On the 65th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, U.S. public schools and neighborhoods are more racially segregated than they have been in decades, while the country’s racial wealth gap continues to widen. These patterns of residential segregation and grossly disparate median net worth are equally present and urgent in Boston on the 45th anniversary of the city’s school desegregation case, Morgan v. Hennigan. This panel assembles litigators, organizers, and scholars to reflect on Brown’s legacy and critically examine both the limits and promise of its remedies, nationally and in Boston.
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COOKED: Survival by Zip Code Movie Screening, East Boston
Thursday, May 16
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM EDT
Paris Street Community Center, 112 Paris Street, East Boston
Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand takes audiences from the deadly 1995 Chicago heat disaster deep into one of our nation’s biggest growth industries - Disaster Preparedness. Along the way she forges inextricable links between extreme weather, extreme disparity and the politics of ‘disaster’; daring to ask: what if a zip code was just a routing number, and not a life-or-death sentence?
Adapted from HEAT WAVE: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago by Eric Klinenberg.
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The Age of Living Machines: A Conversation with Susan Hockfield and Robin Young of NPR
Thursday, May 16
6:00pm to 9:00pm
Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, 76-156 500 Main Street, Cambridge
Join KI member and MIT President Emerita Susan Hockfield as she sits down to discuss her new book, The Age of Living Machines, with Robin Young, co-host of NPR's and WBUR’s Here & Now. Learn about the new revolution in the life sciences and find out how the convergence of biology and engineering stands poised to solve the world's greatest challenges.
Thursday, May 16, 7:00-8:00pm at MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. Reception at 6:00pm with dessert to follow the program. A limited number of signed books will be available for purchase (cash or check only).
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Eat Like a Fish with Bren Smith
Thursday, May 16
7:00pm
Trident Books Cafe, 338 Newbury Street, Boston
Part memoir, part manifesto, in Eat Like a Fish Bren Smith—a former commercial fisherman turned restorative ocean farmer—shares a bold new vision for the future of food: seaweed.
Through tales that span from his childhood in Newfoundland to his early years on the high seas aboard commercial fishing trawlers, from pioneering new forms of ocean farming to surfing the frontiers of the food movement, Smith introduces the world of sea-based agriculture, and advocates getting ocean vegetables onto American plates (there are thousands of edible varieties in the sea!).
Here he shows how we can transform our food system while enjoying delicious, nutritious, locally grown food, and how restorative ocean farming has the potential to create millions of new jobs and protect our planet in the face of climate change, rising populations, and finite food resources. Also included are recipes from acclaimed chefs Brooks Headley and David Santos.
Written with the humor and swagger of a fisherman telling a late-night tale, this is a monumental work of deeply personal food policy that will profoundly change the way we think about what we eat.
About the Author
Bren Smith is a former commercial fisherman turned ocean farmer who pioneered the development of restorative 3D ocean farming. Born and raised in Newfoundland, he left high school at the age of 14 to work on fishing boats from the Grand Banks to the Bering Sea. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, National Geographic, The Atlantic, and elsewhere; his ocean farm won the Buckminster Fuller Challenge for ecological design, and, in 2017, was named one of TIME magazine’s Best Inventions. He is the owner of Thimble Island Ocean Farm, and Executive Director of the non-profit Greenwave, which trains new ocean farmers.
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BostonTalks: Empowerment
Thursday, May 16
7:00 PM to 9:00 PM (EDT)
WGBH, 1 Guest Street, Boston
Cost: $11.54 - $15
From empowering oneself to one’s whole community, this month’s BostonTalks speakers are sure to inspire. Hear how they have created the positive change needed to turn around their lives and inspire others.
Hear from
Sara Minkara
Founder and CEO of Empowerment Through Integration
Sara became blind at age 7. As an adult, she founded Empowerment Through Integration, an organization that strives to make society more inclusive for people with disabilities by rejecting bias and fostering respect. Sara has been recognized in Forbes’ “30 Under 30.”
Andrea Isabelle Lucas
Founder and CEO of Barre & Soul, and Author of Own It All
Andrea is a domestic violence survivor who went from being broke to owning a very successful business. She founded Barre & Soul, wrote a book, became an advocate for self-empowered change and shared the stage with Michelle Obama and Billie Jean King as a women’s empowerment speaker.
Kurtlan Massarsky
Director of Development and Marketing
Kurtlan works with the youth-led organization known as the Boston Alliance of Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Youth, or BAGLY, to empower LGBTQ youth to make a positive difference in their community and in themselves.
Hosted by Edgar B. Herwick III, WGBH’s Curiosity Desk
BostonTalks is WGBH’s smarter happy hour. It’s smarter because we feature three short talks, and it’s happy hour because the entire event takes place in a bar-like setting with lots of casual conversation.
BostonTalks Happy Hour is a networking-style event with limited seating.
You must be at least 21 with a valid ID to attend. Beer, wine and hard cider are available for purchase
Tickets are $15 at the door.
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Friday, May 17
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Bike to Work Day 2019
Friday, May 17
7:00 AM - 9:00 AM
City Hall Plaza, Boston
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EBC Climate Change Program: Early Actions to Mitigate Regional Coastal Flooding Risks
Friday, May 17
Registration: 7:30 a.m. - 8:00 a.m.
Program: 8:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Kleinfelder, One Beacon Street, Suite 8100, Boston
Cost: $50 - $185
This EBC Climate Change program will focus on measures being planned, designed, and implemented to mitigate regional coastal flooding risks in Metro Boston. Climate vulnerability assessments predict that, by the mid-to-late century, large inland areas in the region will be at risk of flooding from sea level rise and storm surge. Flood risks in these areas could be significantly mitigated by implementing targeted interventions at low-lying flood entry points along the waterfront, cutting off regional flood pathways at their sources. Join us for presentations by project proponents who are taking just this approach, and a conversation with communities with a stake in the outcomes.
Attendees will learn about the regional risks from coastal flood pathways, existing conditions and proposed solutions at specific waterfront entry points, and different models for private, local, state, and federal involvement. The program will end with a panel discussion and audience Q&A.
General Continuing Education Certificates are awarded by the EBC for this program (3.5 training contact hours). Please select this option during registration if you wish to receive a certificate.
Program Chair & Moderator:
Nasser Brahim, Senior Climate Change Planner, Kleinfelder
Speakers:
Allison Perlman, Project Manager, City of Boston, Parks and Recreation Department
Leo Pierre Roy, Commissioner, Department of Conservation and Recreation, Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Alexander Train, Assistant Director, City of Chelsea, Department of Planning and Development
Following the Speaker Presentations will be a Panel Discussion moderated by Nasser Brahim of Kleinfelder.
Panelists:
Alicia Hunt, Director, City of Medford, Energy and Environment Office
John Bolduc, City of Cambridge, Environmental Planner
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Design Museum Mornings: Designing a Healthier Society
Friday, May 17
8:30 AM – 10:00 AM EDT
Optum, 1325 Boylston Street, Boston
Cost: $0 – $15
Amy Bucher, Behavior Change Design Director at Mad*Pow, examines how individuals can collectively design a healthier society. Changing a society’s behavior is a tall order, but can be successful with buy-in from multiple industries and with collaboration across disciplines. The design of societal messaging and the psychology of motivation creates leverage points for behavior change interventions to take root.
About Design Museum Mornings
Design Museum Mornings is a monthly event series brought to you by Design Museum Boston. These events are meant to inspire you before your day begins and bring you closer to the Design Museum Boston community. Each event will include a short presentation by a local thought-leader, free breakfast, and great people to wake up with. These events are hosted and sponsored by various generous businesses of the Greater Boston area. If you are interested in hosting one of these events, please check out our host page here for more information.
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Petrie-Flom Center Annual Conference: Consuming Genetics: Ethical and Legal Considerations of New Technologies
WHEN Friday, May 17, 2019, 8:30 a.m. – 5:15 p.m.
WHERE Harvard Law School, Wasserstein Hall, Milstein West (2019), 1585 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Ethics, Health Sciences, Law
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School is pleased to announce plans for our 2019 annual conference: “Consuming Genetics: The Ethical and Legal Considerations of Consumer Genetic Technologies.” This year’s conference is organized in collaboration with Nita A. Farahany, Duke Law School, and Henry T. Greely, Stanford Law School.
Sponsored by the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School with support from the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School and the Oswald DeN. Cammann Fund at Harvard University.
COST Free
TICKET WEB LINK https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/eventReg?oeidk=a07efp90sc8bd0a7b71&oseq=&c=&ch=
DETAILS Breakthroughs in genetics have often raised complex ethical and legal questions, which loom ever larger as genetic testing is becoming more commonplace, affordable, and comprehensive and genetic editing becomes poised to be a consumer technology. As genetic technologies become more accessible to individuals, the ethical and legal questions around the consumer use of these technologies become more pressing.
Already the global genetic testing and consumer/wellness genomics market was valued at $2.24 billion in 2015 and is expected to double by 2025 to nearly $5 billion. The rise of direct-to-consumer genetic testing and DIY kits raise questions about the appropriate setting for these activities, including a concern that delivering health-related results directly to consumers might cause individuals to draw the wrong medical conclusions. At the same time, advances in CRISPR and other related technologies raise anxieties about the implications of editing our own DNA, especially as access to these technologies explode in the coming years.
In an age where serial killers are caught because their relatives chose to submit DNA to a consumer genealogy database, is genetic privacy for individuals possible? Does the aggregation of data from genetic testing turn people into products by commercializing their data? How might this data reduce or exacerbate already significant health care disparities? How can we prepare for widespread access to genetic editing tools?
As these questions become more pressing, now is the time to re-consider what ethical and regulatory safeguards should be implemented and discuss the many questions raised by advancements in consumer genetics.
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COOKED: Survival by Zip Code Movie Screening, Roxbury
Friday, May 17
10:30 AM – 12:30 PM EDT
785 Albany Street, 6th Floor, Roxbury
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cooked-survival-by-zip-code-movie-screening-roxbury-tickets-60472424650
Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand takes audiences from the deadly 1995 Chicago heat disaster deep into one of our nation’s biggest growth industries - Disaster Preparedness. Along the way she forges inextricable links between extreme weather, extreme disparity and the politics of ‘disaster’; daring to ask: what if a zip code was just a routing number, and not a life-or-death sentence?
Adapted from HEAT WAVE: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago by Eric Klinenberg.
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A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventure of Liberalism
Friday, May 17
6:00 PM EDT
The Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle Street, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store welcomes celebrated author, critic, and lecturer ADAM GOPNIK—author of Paris to the Moon, At the Stranger's Gate and more—for a one-man show based on his latest book, A Thousand Small Sanities: The Moral Adventures of Liberalism. This event is co-sponsored by Mass Humanities.
Tickets are available online only. All tickets for this event include a $5 coupon for use in the bookstore. Pre-sale tickets include a copy of A Thousand Small Sanities. Books bundled with pre-sale tickets may only be picked up at the venue the night of the event, and cannot be picked up in-store beforehand.
Learn more at http://www.harvard.com/event/adam_gopnik1/
Tickets are non-refundable and non-returnable.
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The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age
Friday, May 17
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store welcomes Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and New York Times national security correspondent DAVID E. SANGER for the paperback release of his latest book, The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age.
About The Perfect Weapon
In the wake of indictments of Russian hackers and Donald Trump’s baffling performance at his Helsinki summit with Vladimir Putin, no book better explains the profound, powerful trajectory of cyber warfare between the US and Russia than David Sanger’s The Perfect Weapon. The 2016 election hacks turn out to be just the beginning: before that, the Russians not only had broken into networks at the White House, the State Department, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but had placed implants in American electrical and nuclear plants that could give them the power to switch off vast swaths of the country. This was the culmination of a decade of escalating digital sabotage among the world’s powers, in which Americans became the collateral damage as China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia battled in cyberspace to undercut one another in daily just-short-of-war conflict.
The Perfect Weapon is the startling inside story of how the rise of cyberweapons transformed geopolitics like nothing since the invention of the atomic bomb. Cheap to acquire, easy to deny, and usable for a variety of malicious purposes—from crippling infrastructure to sowing discord and doubt—cyber is now the weapon of choice for democracies, dictators, and terrorists. Two presidents—Bush and Obama—drew first blood with Operation Olympic Games, which used malicious code to blow up Iran’s nuclear centrifuges, and yet America proved remarkably unprepared when its own weapons were stolen from its arsenal and, during President Trump’s first year, turned back on the US and its allies. The government was often paralyzed, unable to threaten the use of cyberweapons because America was so vulnerable to crippling attacks on its own networks of banks, utilities, and government agencies.
Moving from the White House Situation Room to the dens of Chinese government hackers to the boardrooms of Silicon Valley, New York Times national security correspondent David Sanger—who broke the story of Olympic Games in his previous book—reveals a world coming face-to-face with the perils of technological revolution. Now in paperback, The Perfect Weapon is the dramatic story of how great and small powers alike slipped into a new era of constant sabotage, misinformation, and fear, in which everyone is a target.
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Saturday, May 18
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Mystic River Herring Run and Paddle
Saturday, May 18
8:00 AM – 3:00 PM EDT
Paddleboston : Blessing of the Bay, Somerville, 32 Shore Drive, Somerville
Cost: $20
Join over 400 runners and paddlers at the 23rd annual Mystic Herring Run and Paddle—a race for everyone!
The Mystic River Herring Run and Paddle includes a 5K run/walk race, three paddling races (3, 9, and 12 miles), educational booths, children’s activities, and more. All events are held at the DCR Blessing of the Bay Boathouse in Somerville. The 5K course continues along the Mystic River bike path and through DCR Torbert MacDonald Park. There are no street crossings on this flat course.
Buy your tickets online now on our website: https://mysticriver.org/herring-run-paddle
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Extinction Rebellion Meeting
Saturday, May 18
10-12pm
MITm, Building 9-451, 105 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
We'll start with an XR bootcamp to get you oriented to XR, cover our actions from April, help you find a working group, and look ahead to where we're going in the next few months.
More information at https://xrmass.org/action/
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Poverty in Black Boston: A Public Town Hall Discussion and Seminar
Saturday, May 18
10:00 AM – 2:00 PM EDT
Mattapan Library, 1350 Blue Hill Avenue, Mattapan
Your voice is important.
I do not claim that you are ignorant of the concerns analyzed in this invitation. They are concerns you are very conversant with and are witnessing. What I am trying to raise are the questions of "consequence” and “Solution.” A generation of especially Black youths in Mattapan, Dorchester and Roxbury in Boston are facing the prospect of grave economic doom. In communities where only less than 10 percent own bank accounts with liquid asset far below any economically appreciable level, that community will not survive the modern economic challenges. And since communities consist of individuals, those individuals will be confronted with displacement, social marginalization and particular forms of economic depression.
I preface my comments on the summary statements from the joint report of Duke University and the New School produced by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in 2015: The Color of Wealth in Boston (attached). Other reports that have highlighted similar concerns. They include: Race to Equity: The State of Black Massachusetts (2015), Giving Black Boston: An Intimate Portrait of Black Stewardship in Boston (2015), Economic Inclusion and Equity Agenda 2016, and Boston’s Booming…But For Whom2018, and the 2011 State of Black Boston. Read: https://churchandprison.org/latest-prison-news/poverty-in-black-boston-public-town-hall-discussion-and-seminar/
"There exist key differences in liquid assets, which may be thought of as representing buffers to income and expenditure shocks. The typical white household in Boston is more likely than nonwhite households to own every type of liquid asset. For example, close to half of Puerto Ricans and a quarter of U.S. blacks are unbanked (that is, they do not have bank accounts) compared with only 7 percent of whites. For every dollar, the typical white household has in liquid assets (excluding cash), U.S. blacks have 2 cents, Caribbean blacks 14 cents, and Puerto Ricans and Dominicans less than 1 cent."
Poverty in Black Boston is becoming increasingly obvious. Take a walk at Downtown Crossing on any day. In the midst of an increase in gentrification, high rates of unemployment, the impact of well-documented incarceration of especially young Black men in Boston, the impact of the long-term process of marginalization is already bearing fruits of grave economic disparity. These developments were predicted by expert and excellent reports analyzing the impacts of sociopolitical and economic marginalization of minority groups in Boston and their restriction to necessary resources for social mobility.
We invite you to a public town hall discussion and seminar on Poverty, Race and Development in Mattapan, Dorchester and Roxbury entitled:
"Let's Talk About Poverty, Race and Development in Black Boston: 'Mattapan, Dorchester and Roxbury."
This public town hall discussion and seminar is solution oriented. The goal is solution development, resource availability and empowerment for folks to take steps to self-develop their communities. Please come with ideas, suggestions, and next step comments! Self-initiative is a valuable asset.
The format of the event:
Opening panel discussion
Breakout group discussion
Closing panel discussion with suggestions from group discussions
Closing Remarks on the need for self-development and initiative.
We need your voice, ideas, comments and suggestions to be a part of the solution process during the breakout sessions. Please plan to attend. Please feel free to forward this to individuals you think might be interested in this sort of discussion. We are still looking for individuals and organizations to sponsor this event. The event is Free.
Our Needs:
Easels and writing boards: 6
Pens and markers
Flashcards
Name tags
Markers
Water, juices and cups.
Box lunches (The event is four hours and free)
Contact information: Email: churchandprison@gmail.com, Tel: 857-346-6905. Address: The Center for Church and Prison, Inc. P. O. Box 146, Boston, 02121.
"Whites and nonwhites also exhibit key differences in less-liquid assets that are primarily associated with homeownership, basic transportation, and retirement or health savings. While most white households (56 percent) own retirement accounts, only one-fifth of U.S and Caribbean blacks have them. Only 8 percent of Dominicans and 16 percent of Puerto Ricans have such accounts. Most whites—79 percent—own a home, whereas only one-third of U.S. blacks, less than one-fifth of Dominicans and Puerto Ricans, and only half of Caribbean blacks are homeowners."
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Franklin Park Kite & Bike Festival
Saturday, May 18
11:00 AM – 4:00 PM EDT
Franklin Park Playstead, Pierpont Road, Boston
Picture endless blue skies dotted with colorful kites, children and families running and laughing across bright green fields —
The Franklin Park Kite & Bike Festival is not to be missed! 2019 Festival highlights include: kite-making, games and activities led by Playworks and Appalachian Mountain Club's OutdoorsRX, biking in Boston - organizations & resources, food vendors, face-painting, music, performances & MUCH MORE! (Rain date: Sunday, May 19 from 1PM- 5PM)
Contact: admin@franklinparkcoalition.org | (617) 442 4141
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Cyber Security for the 21st Century
Saturday May 18
2 – 5 PM
BU, Innovate@BU, 730 Commonwealth Avenue, Brookline
Cost: $5 - $10
Not a single day goes by without the news headlines screaming data breach! No individual or individual is immune from the scourge of hacking – be that Jeff Bezos of Amazon or Equifax or Marriott or Facebook.. Safeguarding end to end infrastructure and consumer data privacy is at the forefront of every CXO’s agenda and they are losing sleep over this! As we become ever more dependent on the Cloud, how do we protect our most precious assets?
How can one secure autonomous vehicles — drones, missiles, planes? How can we protect critical infrastructure – utilities, hospitals and financial systems? What about Alexa, Google Home in our homes? Are we doomed to being always one step behind the hackers? We have assembled an expert panel, who will share their experience with real world examples of how they are addressing these challenges. Engage in a discussion with your peers and professional in the field.
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Show Addiction, Show Recovery: A Public Workshop
Saturday, May 18
2:30 PM – 4:30 PM EDT
Mattapan Branch of Boston Public Library, 1350 Blue Hill Avenue, Mattapan
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/show-addiction-show-recovery-a-public-workshop-tickets-61154446596
Improbable Players will be hosting an interactive workshop that is free and open to the public. We'll be looking at how addiction affects all communities in MA with a focus on the stories we don't hear. We're starting in Mattapan.
You don't have to have an addiction to take part -all are invited to participate or just come and watch. Snacks will be provided. This event is made possible by our generous host, the Mattapan Branch of the Boston Public Library.
Improbable Players has been addressing addiction through theatre and employing people in recovery for over 35 years. We are still seeking program sponsors for this event! If you are interested in supporting as a sponsor, please reach out to our office at 617.926.8124 or players@improbableplayers.org
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Sunday, May 19
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Extinction Rebellion May NVDA training sessions
Sunday, May 19
4 p.m.
Boston or Cambridge area, TBA.
Learn how to take part in XR actions at this NVDA training series! You will be empowered to engage in non-violent civil disobedience and have the opportunity to form an affinity group, which is your creative team and support system for Extinction Rebellion actions.
The two May trainings are usually given in a single session, but due to time constraints we are splitting the training up. You'll learn a lot coming to both sessions but you are still welcome to come if you can only make one.
May 19 4-9pm (location TBA)
May 20 6-10pm (location TBA)
The June training is a follow-up to the May sessions, and will also provide just-in-time training for XR actions planned for early June. A lawyer from NLG Mass will provide information on the legal aspects of civil disobedience.
June 6 6-10pm (location TBA)
Bring friends who you would like to form an affinity group with, or make one with fellow rebels that you meet while you're here! Please indicate what dates you can make it in the "Your role" section below.
Preparation for Civil Disobedience. Honoring the movements we stand on. Building community for action.
These training sessions will provide engagement on non-violence and the dynamics of civil disobedience, offer scenarios and practical information for taking collective action, and look at movement messages that convey powerful impact. Time to connect, get energized, and deepen readiness for being and acting together.
Trainer Cathy Hoffman has been involved in activism over many decades - most recently with the two-year-long fight to stop the West Roxbury Pipeline and civil disobedience actions for the local Poor Peoples Campaign.
Contact mcusi@pm.me with questions.
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Monday, May 20
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Developing an Ethical Food Statement
Monday May 20
6:00-8:00 p.m.
Tremont Street Shul, 8 Tremont Street, Cambridge
Cost: $10
When we gather in community, what we eat has the potential to promote animal welfare, slow down the negative effects of climate change, and build healthier food systems. Over the last few years, more Jewish communities than ever have committed to improve their food sourcing and leverage their buying power to promote more sustainable practices. These transitions come in parallel to larger institutional and corporate commitments.
Join us to hear from David Havelick, Sustainability Manager at Harvard University, who recently implemented Sustainable Healthful Food Standards and is part of a growing wave of schools and businesses aligning their values with their food practices.
In this workshop, you’ll gain a better understanding of food sourcing strategies and engage in discussion around how to develop an ethical food statement with your institution. We will share our experiences, ask questions, and brainstorm with fellow participants around ways to bring these tools back to our respective communities.
If two people from the same community register together, the third person is free! **
Light kosher snacks will be served.
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Boston New Technology EdTech & CareerTech Startup Showcase #BNT101
Monday, May 20
6:00 PM – 9:00 PM EDT
Hult International Business School, 1 Education Street, Cambridge
Cost: $0 – $99
Join us to:
See innovative and exciting local EdTech & CareerTech technology demos, presented by startup founders
Network with attendees from the Boston-area startup/tech community
Get your free headshot photo (non-intrusively watermarked) from The Boston Headshot!
Enjoy pizza, salad, beverages and more
Each company presents an overview and demonstration of their product within 5 minutes and discusses questions with the audience.
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PINT OF SCIENCE Spotlight on the Brain: Myths, Measurements & Mysteries
Monday, May 20
6:00pm to 9:00pm
The Asgard, 350 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Cost: $5
Pint of Science is an annual science festival that takes place every May and brings researchers to your local pub or bar to show you the latest happenings in the world of science.
Join researchers from the McGovern Institute at MIT for some brainy talk.
SPEAKERS
LOU BEAULIEU-LAROCHE, PhD candidate, Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT
"How are human brains cells special?"
RACHEL ROMEO, Postdoc Fellow, Boston Children's Hospital and MIT
"How do differences in our early childhood experiences change our brain development?"
KRISTINA KITKO, Postdoc Associate, Media Arts and Sciences, MIT
"What's it useful for? What we can (and can't) learn about disease from developing new methods to study model systems"
BEN BARTELLE, Research Scientist, Neurobiological Engineering, MIT
"Molecular fMRI: Creating the means to see the unseeable"
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Truth Worth Telling: A Reporter's Search for Meaning in the Stories of Our Times
Monday, May 20
6:30 PM – 7:30 PM EDT
Coolidge Corner Theatre, 290 Harvard Street, Brookline
Cost: $5 – $27
Scott Pelley will appear at Coolidge Corner Theatre from 6:30-7:30pm (ticket required) to discuss his new book, Truth Worth Telling: A Reporter's Search for Meaning in the Stories of Our Times. He will sign books afterward at Brookline Booksmith, across the street.
Please read the following information carefully before making your purchase:
Every attendee must have a ticket.
Present your on-screen or printed ticket at the Coolidge for entry.
Tickets are valid until 6:25pm, at which point unfilled seats may go to the standby line.
In the case of a sold out event, a standby line will form at the Coolidge Corner Theatre. Standby tickets will be available for purchase on a first-come, first-served basis while supplies last.
Scott's talk will begin at 6:30pm and last one hour.
A book signing at Brookline Booksmith (across the street from the theatre) will follow Scott's talk at 7:30pm.
If your ticket includes a book, you may pick it up at Brookline Booksmith on the day of the event or before the end of June 2019.
All tickets are nonreturnable and nonrefundable.
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A Socialist Defector: From Harvard to Karl-Marx-Allee
Monday, May 20
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store welcomes journalist and Harvard alumnus VICTOR GROSSMAN for a discussion of his new memoir, A Socialist Defector: From Harvard to Karl-Marx-Allee.
About A Socialist Defector
The circumstances that impelled Victor Grossman, a U.S. Army draftee stationed in Europe, to flee a military prison sentence were the icy pressures of the McCarthy Era. Grossman—a.k.a. Steve Wechsler, a committed leftist since his years at Harvard and, briefly, as a factory worker—left his barracks in Bavaria one August day in 1952, and, in a panic, swam across the Danube River from the Austrian U.S. Zone to the Soviet Zone. Fate—i.e., the Soviets—landed him in East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic. There he remained, observer and participant, husband and father, as he watched the rise and successes, the travails, and the eventual demise of the GDR socialist experiment. A Socialist Defector is the story, told in rare, personal detail, of an activist and writer who grew up in the U.S. free-market economy; spent thirty-eight years in the GDR’s nationally owned, centrally administered economy; and continues to survive, given whatever the market can bear in today’s united Germany.
Having been a freelance journalist and traveling lecturer—and the only person in the world to hold diplomas from both Harvard and the Karl Marx University—Grossman is able to offer insightful, often ironic, reflections and reminiscences, comparing the good and bad sides of life in all three of the societies he has known. His account focuses especially on the socialism he saw and lived—the GDR’s goals and achievements, its repressive measures and stupidities—which, he argues, offers lessons now in our search for solutions to the grave problems facing our world. This is a fascinating and unique historical narrative; political analysis told with jokes, personal anecdotes, and without bombast.
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JP Solar Happy Hour - May 2019
Monday, May 20
7:00 PM – 10:00 PM EDT
The Jeanie Johnston Pub, 144 South Street, Boston
Come join other solar professionals for a few drinks and chit chat on May 20th.
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Tuesday, May 21
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Elemental Series: Accelerating Science through Innovation
Tuesday, May 21
8:30 AM to 5:00 PM
LabCentral, 700 Main Street, Cambridge
INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS:
We would like to invite you to the inaugaral Element Summit Series: Accelerating Science through Innovation. Learn about new Technologies for the Laboratory including:
Internet of Things (IoT)
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML)
Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR)
Learn from industry leaders. Hear case studies from your peers on adapting new technologies. Network with the who’s who of Boston’s biotech scene.
Agenda
8:30 - 9:00am Welcome and Coffee
9:00 - 9:30am Johannes Freuhauf, President Lab Central
9:30 - 10:15am Sridhar Iyengar PhD, CEO Elemental Machines
10:15 - 10:30am Networking Break
10:30 - 11:15am Steve Morandi, OneSource Leader, Perkin Elmer
11:15 - 12:30pm Panel Discussion: Adapting New Technologies in the Lab
12:30 - 1:30pm Lunch + Networking
1:30 - 2:15pm Timothy Gardner, CEO Riffyn
2:15 - 3:00pm Bob Coughlin, President and CEO MassBio
3:00 - 3:15pm Networking Break
3:15 - 3:45pm Robert Ranville, Business Development, RealWorld One
3:45-4:30pm Wrap-up/Tour/Networking
4:30 pm After-hours Networking, Sulmona Restaurant and Bar, 608 Main Street
Invite your colleagues to join us at Sulmona (two minute walk from LabCentral)
FAQs
Who would benefit the most from attending this event?
This event is especially geared for lab operations managers/directors, data and bench scientists, automation engineers, or related job functions that work in the life sciences field.
What are my transportation/parking options for getting to and from the event?
While there are a few parking garages in the vicinity of LabCentral, parking is extremely limited. You may be able to reserve a parking spot through SpotHero. We highly recommend taking the MBTA Red Line to the Kendall Square stop. It is a short ten minute walk directly along Main Street to reach LabCentral.
How to do I find the entrance to the event?
Walk along Main Street until you reach Osborn Street as the cross street. Turn onto Osborn Steet and continue walking about 1/2 block until you see a walkway on your left. Turn left at the walkway and continue for about 100 feet until you see the main entrance for LabCentral.
I am a student. Can I attend?
Unfortunately not. This event is specially geared for experienced professionals. If you are a student, please sign up at www.elementalmachines.iofor info on our upcoming event for job seekers and industry overview.
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On the Brink: Saving our Right Whale, Saving our Ocean
Tuesday, May 21
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM EDT
New England Aquarium, 1 Central Wharf, Simon's IMAX Theater, Boston
Our planet needs us now. We’ve all been hearing the heartbreaking news about recent North Atlantic right whale deaths. They are on the brink of extinction, BUT with our help this species can be saved.
Join us W2O’s signature event ON THE BRINK: Saving Our Right whale.Saving Our Ocean. This year we are honored to feature Dr. Scott Kraus. Dr. Kraus has been a leader in ocean conservation and has worked tirelessly for over 30 years to save this beloved species.
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Askwith Forums – Behind the Numbers: The Boston Globe's Valedictorians Project
WHEN Tuesday, May 21, 2019, 1 – 2:15 p.m.
WHERE The Charles Hotel, Ballroom - 3rd floor, 1 Bennett Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
TYPE OF EVENT Community Programming, Forum, Question & Answer Session
PROGRAM/DEPARTMENT Askwith Forum
BUILDING/ROOM Other
CONTACT NAME Roger Falcon
CONTACT EMAIL askwith@gse.harvard.edu
CONTACT PHONE 617-384-9968
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION/DEPARTMENT Harvard Graduate School of Education
REGISTRATION REQUIRED Yes
ADMISSION FEE This event is free and open to the public.
RSVP REQUIRED Yes
FEATURED EVENT Askwith Forums
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Special Events
DETAILS Location: The Charles Hotel, Ballroom - 3rd floor, 1 Bennett Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
*Note the special mid-afternoon time of this Askwith Forum. The forum will take place at the Charles Hotel in conjunction with the Strategic Data Project (SDP) 10th anniversary convening.
Please join convening attendees in person for this post-lunch session, or join via livestream. If you plan to attend, please register.
Moderator: Bridget Terry Long, dean and Saris Professor of Education and Economics, HGSE
Panelists:
Madelyn Disla, program coordinator, Massachusetts Rehabilitation Center; 2007 valedictorian
Malcolm Gay, arts reporter, The Boston Globe
Joshua Goodman, associate professor of public policy, Harvard Kennedy School
Meghan Irons, social justice and race reporter, The Boston Globe
Abadur Rahman, economic development director, Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation; 2006 valedictorian
Graduating from high school at the top of your class is the ultimate indicator of academic success, but for many of Boston's valedictorians their paths after high school have not necessarily gone as planned.
Meet the journalists behind The Boston Globe’s recent investigationinto the outcomes of valedictorians from Boston high schools. Hear the team discuss its troubling findings with researcher Joshua Goodman and moderator Dean Bridget Terry Long, and learn from the valedictorians themselves about the barriers to success and what we can do to help our best and brightest students graduate from college and go on to flourish.
Please note that seating is first come, first seated.
This forum is held in conjunction with the Strategic Data Project’s 10th anniversary convening, “Strength in Numbers.”
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A Dose of Reality Around AI and Manufacturing
Tuesday, May 21
2:00 PM EST
Webinar
The artificial intelligence hype machine is in full swing, promising a science-fiction future in fields far and wide, from healthcare to financing to agriculture and the supply chain. Even manufacturing isn't immune to the promises and allure of intelligent machines making us more productive.
Getting from the present to this future is when reality sets in, and we see real challenges ahead of us. In this webinar, author and consultant Joe Barkai will discuss the current state of AI and machine learning in the manufacturing industry, weeding through the hype to give you a dose of reality.
The webinar will give you a sneak preview of Barkai's session at LiveWorx, "Future Perfect? How Intelligent Machines Are Shaping the Future of Manufacturing", to be held on Tuesday, June 11, 2019, in Boston
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Ethics and Design Thinking: A 21st Century Craftsman
Tuesday, May 21
2:00pm to 3:00pm
MIT, Building E14, 75 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Conversations with Miklu Silvanto
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AI Talks: Next Generation AI – Memory, Causation and Adaptability
Tuesday, May 21
4:30 PM to 7:30 PM
Fidelity Investments, 245 Summer Street, Boston
Cost: $10.00 /per person
21+. Join BNT and FCAT AI Club members to:
Hear experts from Fidelity & Massachusetts General Hospital discuss "Next Generation AI."
Ask our experts your questions on AI.
Network with AI enthusiasts and developers over appetizers, drinks & more at our reception.
Sharad Shandilya and Dr. Rahul Mahajan will present an overview of the recent evolution of Artificial Neural Networks with a focus on memory mechanisms – what memory means and the role these mechanisms play.
Then, they will review the requirements for model interpretability and determination of causality.
To end, they will briefly review relevant analogies to neuroscience which may lend themselves to extrapolation, and entertain a few ideas on how AI could become even more adaptable in the future.
Register at least 48 hours prior to save 50%.
About the Speakers:
Sharad Shandilya is VP / Head of A.I. CoE Practice for Fidelity Institutional at Fidelity Investments.
Rahul Mahajan is Neuroscience Innovation Fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital and Third Rock Ventures
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Pint of Science: The Future of Health: Science or Science Fiction?
Tuesday, May 21
6:00pm to 9:00pm
The Kinsale, 2 Center Plaza, Boston
Cost: $5
Frankenfish: The Salmon we have been waiting for?
Sheldon Krimsky (Lenore Stern Professor in the Humanities and Social Sciences)
Soon we will see genetically modified salmon in the supermarkets throughout the United States. It was recently approved for distribution and sale by the Food and Drug Administration after a review period that began in 1989. How confident can we be that it is safe to eat and safe for the environment? Why do we need it? Will it be more nutritious than ocean-caught salmon or other farmed salmon? What is the genetic modification do to the salmon? Will it be labeled?
Restoring a Sense of Feeling
Shriya Srinivasan (Doctoral Researcher, Biomechatronics Research)
Shriya’s research in the Biomechatronics group at the MIT Media Lab synthesizes her medical and engineering training to redesign the surgical paradigm for amputation.
Shriya has developed a method that improves signaling with advanced bionic devices and returns sensory feedback from prostheses. Notably, her methods can be applied to people who have already undergone amputation, restoring lost function to severed nerves.
Accelerating Drug Discovery with Machine Learning
Kyle Swanson (Graduate Researcher at MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL))
Drug discovery is a slow and expensive process. On average, it takes at least 10 years and costs $2.6 billion to design a new drug and bring it to market. But what if we could use data about the properties of previous drug candidates to help us predict the properties of new molecules without performing any experiments in the lab? In this talk, I’ll discuss how I’m using machine learning to build a molecular property prediction model that is helping chemists filter through vast molecular libraries to more rapidly find viable drug candidates.
Using Tumor Targeting Nanoparticles to Deliver Combination Therapies to Brain Tumors
Fred Chiu-Lai Lam (Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Yaffe Lab)
Glioblastoma is the most common and aggressive brain tumor in adults with very few effective treatments. One of the reasons is the inability of new therapies to cross the blood-brain barrier, therefore finding innovative technologies to enhance delivery of these therapies could help improve survival for patients with glioblastoma. We designed nanoparticles that can package two different therapies with the ability to cross the blood-brain barrier. We were able to show that our nanoparticles could deliver combination therapies to patients with brain tumors.
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Getting to the Point with Governor Bill Weld
Tuesday, May 21
6:30 PM – 8:00 PM EDT
Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate, 210 Morrissey Boulevard, Boston
Governor Bill Weld will visit the Institute for a moderated Getting to the Point conversation to discuss his vision for a better America and share his policy platform for his candidacy for President of the United States. Governor Weld’s appearance is part of a series of Kennedy Institute programming in conjunction with the 2020 election cycle.
Governor Weld is a former two-term Governor of Massachusetts, first elected in 1990. Prior to being elected, Governor Weld served in President Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department as Assistant U.S. Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division and as U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts. He also served as a staff member in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is an active member of the Council on Foreign Relations, served for five years as a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, and is an associate member of the InterAction Council, an elected group of former heads of state from throughout the world, which convenes to consider and report on global issues.
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What My Mother and I Don't Talk About
Tuesday, May 21
7:00pm
Porter Square Books, 25 White Street, Cambridge
Anthology editor Michele Filgate reads from and discusses What My Mother and I Don't Talk About, in conversation with Laura van den Berg.
As an undergraduate, Michele Filgate started writing an essay about being abused by her stepfather. It took her more than a decade to realize what she was actually trying to write: how this affected her relationship with her mother. When it was finally published, the essay went viral, shared on social media by Anne Lamott, Rebecca Solnit, and many others. The outpouring of responses gave Filgate an idea, and the resulting anthology offers a candid look at our relationships with our mothers.
While some of the writers in this book are estranged from their mothers, others are extremely close. Leslie Jamison writes about trying to discover who her seemingly perfect mother was before ever becoming a mom. In Cathi Hanauer’s hilarious piece, she finally gets a chance to have a conversation with her mother that isn’t interrupted by her domineering (but lovable) father. André Aciman writes about what it was like to have a deaf mother. Melissa Febos uses mythology as a lens to look at her close-knit relationship with her psychotherapist mother. And Julianna Baggott talks about having a mom who tells her everything.
As Filgate writes, “Our mothers are our first homes, and that’s why we’re always trying to return to them.” There’s relief in breaking the silence. Acknowledging what we couldn’t say for so long is one way to heal our relationships with others and, perhaps most important, with ourselves.
Contributors include Cathi Hanauer, Melissa Febos, Alexander Chee, Dylan Landis, Bernice L. McFadden, Julianna Baggott, Lynn Steger Strong, Kiese Laymon, Carmen Maria Machado, André Aciman, Sari Botton, Nayomi Munaweera, Brandon Taylor, and Leslie Jamison.
Michele Filgate’s work has appeared in Longreads; The Washington Post; the Los Angeles Times; The Boston Globe; The Paris Review Daily; Tin House; Gulf Coast; O, The Oprah Magazine; BuzzFeed; Refinery29; and many other publications. Currently, she is an MFA student at NYU, where she is the recipient of the Stein Fellowship. She’s a contributing editor at Literary Hub and teaches at the Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop and Catapult. What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About is her first book.
Laura van den Berg’s most recent novel, The Third Hotel, was an ABA IndieNext Pick, named a best book of 2018 by over a dozen outlets, and is currently a finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award. She is also the author of one previous novel, Find Me, and two story collections. Laura currently lives in Cambridge, MA, with her husband and dog, and is a Briggs-Copeland Lecturer in Fiction at Harvard. Her next story collection, I Hold a Wolf by the Ears, is forthcoming from FSG in 2020.
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Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass
Tuesday, May 21
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store welcomes anthropologist and Microsoft Senior Researcher MARY L. GRAY for a discussion of her latest book, Ghost Work: How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass, co-authored by Siddharth Suri. She will be joined in conversation by GIDEON LICHFIELD, editor-in-chief of MIT Technology Review.
About Ghost Work
Hidden beneath the surface of the web, lost in our wrong-headed debates about AI, a new menace is looming. Anthropologist Mary L. Gray and computer scientist Siddharth Suri team up to unveil how services delivered by companies like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Uber can only function smoothly thanks to the judgment and experience of a vast, invisible human labor force. These people doing "ghost work" make the internet seem smart. They perform high-tech piecework: flagging X-rated content, proofreading, designing engine parts, and much more. An estimated 8 percent of Americans have worked at least once in this “ghost economy,” and that number is growing. They usually earn less than legal minimums for traditional work, they have no health benefits, and they can be fired at any time for any reason, or none.
There are no labor laws to govern this kind of work, and these latter-day assembly lines draw in—and all too often overwork and underpay—a surprisingly diverse range of workers: harried young mothers, professionals forced into early retirement, recent grads who can’t get a toehold on the traditional employment ladder, and minorities shut out of the jobs they want. Gray and Suri also show how ghost workers, employers, and society at large can ensure that this new kind of work creates opportunity—rather than misery—for those who do it.
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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://calendar.mit.edu
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
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Eventbrite: http://www.eventbrite.com/
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
If you have an event you would like to see here, the submission deadline is 11 AM on Sundays, as Energy (and Other) Events is sent out Sunday afternoons.
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