You're Invited: Solve at MIT Opening Plenary, May 8, 3:30-5PM

To the members of the MIT community,

I write to invite you to an exciting event on our campus: the opening plenary session of Solve at MIT:

“Does technology still create more opportunity than it destroys?” 

Kresge Auditorium
May 8, 3:30-5PM 
Free of charge

Please register here

• L. Rafael Reif, MIT President
• Rodney Brooks, Founder, Chairman and CTO, Rethink Robotics, Inc.; Panasonic Professor of Robotics (emeritus)
• Erik Brynjolfsson, Schussel Family Professor of Management Science; Director, MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy
• Ash Carter, 25th US Secretary of Defense; MIT Innovation Fellow; Director, Belfer Center at Harvard's Kennedy School
• Yo-Yo Ma, Cellist
• Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairperson & Managing Director, Biocon Limited

About Solve

An initiative of the Office of the President, Solve connects technologists, business leaders, researchers, social entrepreneurs and policy makers from around the world to identify and advance solutions to pressing global challenges related to learning, health, sustainability and economic prosperity.

Since the first event in October 2015, Solve has issued four specific challenges – on refugee education, carbon contributions, chronic disease and inclusive innovation – and in response has received more than 400 proposed solutions, from 57 countries. This past March, through Solve at the United Nations, Solve's judges, comprising MIT faculty, industry leaders and experts, chose the best teams to come to campus for Solve at MIT, as they begin to pilot and scale up their solutions.

The next few months will offer many opportunities for you to take part in Solve, whether by submitting your own solution to the next set of Solve challenges, participating in Solve-a-thons and workshops, or volunteering as a screener, mentor or volunteer. To find out more, please visit Solve's website or email solve@mit.edu. If you are a student and you want to get a head start, sign up to volunteer for the full Solve at MIT event (May 8-10)

I encourage you to explore how you can engage with the innovators already involved in Solve – and I look forward to seeing many of you at the opening plenary session. Don't forget to register!

Sincerely,

Martin A. Schmidt
Provost