Giant Leaps ~ Celebrate Past, Ask What's Next?

On 20 July 1969, Astronaut Neil Armstrong made One Giant Leap For Mankind!

"When the lunar module lands at 4:18 p.m EDT, only 30 seconds of fuel remain. Armstrong radios "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." Mission control erupts in celebration as the tension breaks, and a controller tells the crew "You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue, we're breathing again." [...] At 10:56 p.m. EDT Armstrong is ready to plant the first human foot on another world. With more than half a billion people watching on television, he climbs down the ladder and proclaims: "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." Aldrin joins him shortly, and offers a simple but powerful description of the lunar surface: "magnificent desolation."

MIT $100K 2015 ~ 25 Years of Student Venturing!

Pop by this Wed night 5/13 for MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition LAUNCH Finale! This marks a quarter century of MIT student-led entrepreneurial venturing Tickets are going fast and I expect Kresge to be fully packed, so I highly recommend signing up via the mechanism below! Plus check out the 8 Finalist mini-descriptions. Excellent tag-team keynote w/ Langer & Fuller plus multi-year winner Z Holly as MC! This is going to be great!

Amsterdam Light Festival ~ Timelapse Photonicity!

Thanks to 24oranges for spotlighting the Amsterdam Light Festival 2014-15 and Jack Fisher's lovely timelapse!

Space Fall ~ Baumgartner's 24 Mile Skydive!

Check out Felix Baumgartner's skydive from 24 miles up! PS here's a camera's skydive into pig sty;-)

Sandbox Summit 2013 ~ Cities & Ventures!

Excellent to see the Sandbox Summit happening tomorrow Tues 11 June 2013. Great speakers including Robin Chase, Desh Deshpande, Clara Brenner, and more! And the overall theme is about Re-Imagining Cities Through Entrepreneurship, a topic near-and-dear to my heart.

Future Africa ~ Economist's Ledgard on Afrotech

Join us this Monday, April 29, 2013 at 1pm at MIT Media Lab E14-633 6th floor lecture hall for Future Africa talk by Jonathan Ledgard, Director of Afrotech initiative at EPFL & Africa Correspondent at Large for The Economist. Ledgard will spotlight the technology choices Africa makes in the next decade will help determine whether it becomes competitive or unmanageable. This informal talk will overview Africa's security and environmental challenges, underline its economic potential, and get beyond ICT to identify areas where science will be decisive. He is director of the Afrotech initiative at EPFL in Switzerland. Afrotech seeks to pioneer massively scaleable high technologies into and out of Africa, including distribution of advanced knowledge on digital platforms, robotics, solar, and complexity thinking for future cities. Prior to joining EPFL Jonathan was a foreign political and war correspondent for The Economist. He joined the newspaper in 1995. Since 2004 he has been East Africa correspondent for the paper, with a reporting focus on risk and technology issues. He has published two novels, Giraffe (2006) and Submergence (2012).

MIT International Development Night ~ 13 April '13

Join friends and colleagues and especially our development innovators showcasing their working prototypes and projects at the latest MIT International Development Night this coming 13 April 2013 co-organized by MIT IDI and T&C in cooperation with D-Lab and IDC!

Accelerate ~ MIT $100K Contest Deadline 2day!

Tonight, Wednesday 28 November 2012, a minute before midnight is deadline for the MIT $100K Accelerate Contest!

"The contest is all about building stuff -- it's about execution. Up to 30 teams with the most potential will be selected by the judges to go through to the Accelerate phase during IAP. These teams will receive $1,000 each to spend on their ideas, and we'll pair them up with rockstar mentors and designers. We’ll also help them secure work space."

As former lead organizer of the MIT $100K, I'm especially excited to see the latest class of compelling ventures blossom!

Evacuation Drills ~ Levy on Practicing Responses

Perhaps one of the most distressing and lives-at-risk elements of Superstorm Sandy was the NYU Langone hospital emergency evacuation of ~200 patients (including 20 babies and 45 critical care patients) after multiple power systems failed. MIT alum, healthcare sector leader, and patient advocate Paul Levy posts about how evacuation practice can help and specifically spotlights his own hospital's drill in their neonatal intensive care unit (NICU)...

"An important aspect of hospital operations is to prepare for the unexpected, a catastrophe that can cause a major disruption to patient care. All hospitals plan for such things, [plus we] drill."

Practice makes perfect and the NYU team (and their NYPD, FD, and ER brethren) stayed cool and dealt magnificently with a very severe situation. See more in David Goodman and Colin Moynihan's NYTimes piece Patient Evac From City Medical Center After Power Failure...

P.S. See here ABC report afterwards... P.P.S. CNN's Cooper interviews baby-carrying nurse Margot Condon...

NYC Evac Map ~ Warning Zones for Sandy...

NYTimes interactive on NYC Hurricane Evacuation Zones...

Superstorm Sandy ~ Tracking Emergent Weather

Interesting to see the emergence of this season's first stand-out weather event, what CNN is calling Superstorm Sandy...

"The biggest threat scenario involves the hurricane colliding with a cold front from the West, creating a "superstorm" that could stall over the Eastern seaboard for days. Residents [should] prepare for the possibility of a week or more without power."

NOAA forecasts possible paths...

P.S. See also Andrew Revkin's DotEarth commentary at NYTimes.
P.P.S. Check out NYTimes coverage of Dying Satellites...

Liberty ~ Root Ideals of American Independence!

Take a mo to read the full US Declaration of Independence, think about how far this country has strayed away from TJ's epic ideals -- and what you are going do about it -- and cast your eyes upon the best symbols of American greatness -- the Statue of Liberty and fireworks!

Happy Birthday USA!

iFive ~ Happy Fifth Birthday, Apple iPhone!

Happy Birthday Apple iPhone, 5 years old today! Remember this "three new products... one device"? Epic!

Memorial Day ~ Reminder of Why and Who...

The Patriot Post reminds us Why and Who Memorial Day is about.

Scratch Day ~ Kids Constructing and Coding!

The MIT Media Lab is hosting Scratch Day today! This is one of a global bunch of gatherings where people come together to meet, share projects, and learn more about Scratch!

Inside Out ~ MIT Media Lab Symposium...

Join now online for MIT Media Lab Inside Out Symposium!

International Dev't Night ~ MIT Museum Sat 4/14

Check out International Development Night @ the MIT Museum Saturday, April 14th from 7-9p at the MIT Museum!

"Please join us for a fascinating expo and reception hosted by Technology & Culture and MIT’s International Development Initiative (IDI). This event is being held in conjunction with the MIT Sloan Africa Innovate conference 2012 and the 2012 Harvard International Development Conference. Refreshments will be served."

LAUNCH ~ MIT $100K Ventures Contest DUE!

MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition DUE @ 6pm today Friday 23 March 2012. MIT IDEAS DUE later tonight @ 11:59pm;-)

Global Startups ~ MIT GSW in Istanbul, Turkey!

If you're interested in new venture development, entrepreneurial ecosystems, and cluster crafting, be sure to attend the MIT GSW -- the Global Startup Workshop -- this year in Eurasian bridge-nation, Turkey. Since I helped start this conference at MIT in 1998 -- and every year since -- the MIT GSW brings together hundreds of entrepreneurs and supporters from dozens of countries for intensive discussions, panels, keynotes, etc. This Spring 2012, together with the MIT Enterprise Forum Turkey and Ozyegin and Sabancı universities, the GSW spotlights new technological, global market, and strategic directions. And all this in Istanbul one of the top global supercities! Go!

Non-Event 2012 ~ Kickstarter Their Concerts!

Thanks to Media Lab colleague Joe Paradiso for spotlighting Non-Event -- orchestrators of avant-garde performances throughout Boston area -- and their Kickstarter campaign for the 2012 season...

"We're asking for your support to help us continue to produce top-notch experimental music in and around Boston. 2011 marked our 10th year and we mounted our most ambitious season to date. We organized 30 concerts over the course of the year, featuring some of the finest sound artists, improvisers, and experimental musicians from Boston and around the world. [...] Our plans are just as ambitious for our upcoming season, but we need your help as we go to eleven in 2012. Your contribution to this Kickstarter campaign will help us take care of all the things, both big and small, that allow us to make great concerts happen."