News & Stories

MIT x TAU AFRICA WEBINAR SERIES

The Center for International Studies (CIS) has partnered with the newly launched TRUE Africa University (TAU) to host a webinar series focusing on various aspects of sustainable development in Africa. Thursdays at NOON ET, starting on March 4, TAU founder, MIT alumnus, and CIS research affiliate Claude Grunitzky, will interview the thinkers, shapers and doers who he sees […]

3 Questions: Claude Grunitzky MBA ’12 on launching TRUE Africa University

Shortly after he sold TRACE, the fast-growing, New York-based media company he founded at age 24, Claude Grunitzky came to MIT as a Sloan Fellow. He chose MIT because he wanted to learn more about digital media and the ways he could leverage it for his next company. He was also interested in MIT’s approach […]

MIT Solve announces 2021 global challenges

On March 1, MIT Solve launched its 2021 Global Challenges, with over $1.5 million in prize funding available to innovators worldwide. Solve seeks tech-based solutions from social entrepreneurs around the world that address five challenges. Anyone, anywhere can apply to address the challenges by the June 16 deadline. Solve also announced Eric s. Yuan, founder and […]

Startup empowers women to improve access to safe drinking water

In Ghana’s Northern Region, thousands of villages rely on water from artificial ponds during the region’s long dry season. The water is unsafe to drink and results in thousands of water-borne illnesses each year. Worse yet, the situation is totally preventable. Cheap, locally available water treatment solutions exist to make the region’s abundant surface water […]

Improving sanitation for the world’s most vulnerable people

Last year, women visiting a neonatal clinic at a hospital in Kiboga, Uganda, began using two waterless, standalone bathrooms that offered a cleaner and more private alternative to the pit latrines that are standard in the region. The deployment was the culmination of years of work by the startup change:WATER Labs, co-founded by two MIT […]

The catalyzing potential of J-WAFS seed grants

“A seed grant for a risky idea that is mission-driven goes a long way.” These are the words of Fadel Adib, an associate professor of media arts and sciences and of electrical engineering and computer science and a 2019 recipient of a two-year seed grant from the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab […]

Call for Proposal: J-WAFS Solutions Program

The J-WAFS Solutions program aims to help MIT researchers commercialize breakthrough technologies and inventions by transforming promising ideas at MIT into innovative products and cutting-edge spinout companies. ($150,000 per year, one year.) J-WAFS Solutions has the mission of moving water and food technologies from labs t MIT into the commercial world, where they will improve […]

MIT Graduate Fellowship Opportunity: 2021 CIS Summer Study Fellowship

Doctoral students may apply for summer support for dissertation research or writing that has an international component. Support may be requested either for fieldwork and/or archival research, or for home-based research and write-up. Grants will not exceed $3,500. The main criteria for determining which proposals will be funded are: 1 – the importance of the research question and the quality […]

Visiting undergraduates collaborate with MIT PhD students on research through MIT GOV/LAB mentorship pilot

How can the structure of academia be changed to make it more equitable? This question was posed by an audience member at a December 2020 panel discussion on systemic racism in higher education hosted by the MIT Communications Forum and co-sponsored by Radius at MIT and the MIT Governance Lab (MIT GOV/LAB). Harvard University computer […]

Reducing inequality across the globe and on campus

At a young age, Orisa Coombs pledged to use her engineering knowledge to reduce inequality. The summer after her first year of high school, she found herself grappling with the harsh realities of systemic racism after the death of Michael Brown. Brown’s death altered Coombs’ world view and reshaped how she approached her own role […]