Soap Box

Spring 2008 Series on Creativity and Innovation

Sponsored by Cooper Perkins, a technology development and engineering firm located in Burlington, MA

Wednesday March 19, 2008
William Mitchell

Professor of Architecture and Media Arts and Sciences, William Mitchell talks about the City Car project, a new transportation ecosystem - prototypes of which are on display at the MIT Museum. Mitchell holds the Alexander W. Dreyfoos, Jr. (1954) Professorship and directs the Media Lab's Smart Cities research group. He was formerly Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning and Head of the Program in Media Arts and Sciences, both at MIT. He will be speaking along with some of the graduate students who designed the prototypes.

Wednesday April 2, 2008
David Berry

Soap Box welcomes David Berry an MD, bioengineer and venture capitalist. He's working on genetic engineering of microbes for biofuel production, focusing on developing an inexpensive way to harness hydrogen from bacteria. Well known for his inventive mind, Berry was named the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize winner in 2005 for his innovations in both stroke and cancer treatments.

Wednesday April 9, 2008
John Hockenberry

Award winning journalist, author and editor, now a Distinguished Fellow at the MIT Media Lab, John Hockenberry will talk about his work on human augmentation with Associate Professor, Hugh Herr who directs the Biomechatronics Group at the MIT Media Lab. Hockenberry has been paralyzed since 1975 and is renown for his coverage of wars in the Middle East. His books include A River Out Of Eden and Moving Violations: War Zones, Wheelchairs and Declarations of Independence. The "The Blogs of War" has appeared in Wired magazine.

Soap Box Special for the Cambridge Science Festival
Tuesday April 29, 2008
Sherry Turkle and Cynthia Breazeal
6:00 p.m - 7:30 p.m.

Sherry Turkle, a professor of Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT will talk about sociable robots, "The Robotic Moment and the American Heart: What can we make of our reactions to relational, sociable robotics?" She is joined by Cynthia Breazeal whose anthropomorphic robotic head, Kismet, is on view at the MIT Museum. Turkle is currently writing on the balance between intimacy and solitude in our electronically tethered lives, and has frequently lectured and been interviewed on the topic. Breazeal is an Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences at MIT. She directs the MIT Media Lab's personal robots group and is particularly interested in developing creature-like technologies that exhibit social common sense and engage people in familiar human terms. Breazeal has consulted on several Steven Speilberg movies.