Providing hands-on photonics education across Massachusetts

Photonics — the science of guiding and manipulating light — enables applications ranging from telecommunications, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing to medical imaging, lidar, and augmented reality displays. But despite the importance of this growing field, the nation faces a shortage of photonics and electronics technicians and engineers. The Lab for Education and Application Prototypes […]

MIT Schwarzman College of Computing unveils Break Through Tech AI

Aimed at driving diversity and inclusion in artificial intelligence, the MIT Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing is launching Break Through Tech AI, a new program to bridge the talent gap for women and underrepresented genders in AI positions in industry. Break Through Tech AI will provide skills-based training, industry-relevant portfolios, and mentoring to qualified […]

MIT’s FutureMakers programs help kids get their minds around — and hands on — AI

As she was looking for a camp last summer, Yabesra Ewnetu, who’d just finished eighth grade, found a reference to MIT’s FutureMakers Create-a-thon. Ewnetu had heard that it’s hard to detect bias in artificial intelligence because AI algorithms are so complex, but this didn’t make sense to her. “I was like, well, we’re the ones […]

Training STEM teachers to uncover students’ full potential

In the summer of 2011, MIT PhD student Heather Beem travelled to a rural region of Ghana to try engaging students from low-resource schools in hands-on learning projects. She began by asking a group of high school students what they wanted to work on. “They said, ‘Anything, whatever you want,’” Beem recalls. Hoping to narrow […]

Nurturing human communities and natural ecosystems

When she was in 7th grade, Heidi Li and the five other members of the Oyster Gardening Club cultivated hundreds of oysters to help repopulate the Chesapeake Bay. On the day they released the oysters into the bay, the event attracted TV journalists and local officials, including the governor. The attention opened the young Li’s […]