Kendall Square’s neighborhood took a deep dive into the historical past and future of the area on the Kendall Square Association’s 15th annual assembly on Oct. 19.
It’s no secret that Kendall Square, positioned in Cambridge, Massachusetts, strikes quick. The occasion, titled “Looking Back, Looking Ahead,” gave neighborhood members an opportunity to pause and mirror on how far the area has come and to debate efforts to form the place it’s going subsequent.
“The impact of the last 15 years of working together with a purposeful commitment to make the world a better place was on display this evening,” KSA Executive Director Beth O’Neill Maloney advised the viewers towards the tip of the night. “It also shows how Kendall Square can continue contributing to the world.”
The gathering occurred on the Microsoft NERD Center on Memorial Drive, on a ground that additionally featured music from the Kendall Square Orchestra and, judging by the piles of empty trays on the finish of the evening, an exceedingly well-liked choice of meals from Kendall Square eating places. Attendees got here from throughout Cambridge’s prolific innovation ecosystem — not simply entrepreneurs and life science staff but in addition highschool and school college students, restaurant and retail store homeowners, staff at native cleantech and robotics corporations, and leaders of nonprofits.
KSA itself is a nonprofit made up of over 150 organizations throughout Kendall Square, from main corporations to universities like MIT to analysis organizations just like the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and the unbiased outlets and eating places that give Kendall Square its distinct character.
The evening’s programming included talks about latest funding achievements within the area, a panel dialogue on the implications of synthetic intelligence, and a extremely entertaining, whirlwind historical past lesson led by Daniel Berger-Jones of Cambridge Historical Tours.
“Our vision for the state is to be the best, and Kendall really represents that,” mentioned Yvonne Hao, Massachusetts secretary of financial improvement. “When I went to DC to talk to folks about why Massachusetts should win some of these grants, they said, ‘You already have Kendall, that’s what we’re trying to get the whole country to be like!’”
Hao began her discuss by noting her private connection to Kendall Square. She moved to Cambridge along with her household in 2010 and has watched the neighborhood remodel, along with her children frequenting the previous and new eating places and outlets round city.
The crux of Hao’s discuss was to remind attendees that they had extra to have a good time than KSA’s anniversary. Massachusetts was just lately named the recipient of two main federal grants that may gasoline the state’s innovation work. One of these grants, from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), designated the state an “Investor Catalyst Hub” to speed up innovation round well being care. The different, which got here via the federal CHIPS and Science Act, will permit the state to ascertain the Northeast Microelectronics Coalition Hub to advance microelectronics jobs, workforce coaching alternatives, and funding within the area’s superior manufacturing.
Hao recalled making the pitch for the grants, which might collectively quantity to a whole lot of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in funding over time.
“The pitch happened in Kendall Square because Kendall highlights everything magical about Massachusetts — we have our universities, MIT, we have our research institutions, nonprofits, small businesses, and great community members,” Hao mentioned. “We were hoping for good weather because we wanted to walk with government officials, because when you walk around Kendall, you see the art, you see the coffee shops, you see the people bumping into each other and talking, and you see why it’s so important that this one square mile of geography become the hub they were looking for.”
Hao can be a part of work to place collectively the state’s latest financial improvement plan. She mentioned the group’s tier one priorities are transportation and housing, however listed a lot of different areas the place she hopes Massachusetts can enhance.
“We can be an amazing, strong economy that’s mission-driven and innovation-driven with all kinds of jobs for all kinds of people, and at the same time an awesome community that loves each other and has great food and small businesses and looks out for each other, that looks diverse just like this room,” Hao mentioned. “That’s the story we want to tell.”
After the historic tour and the debut of a video explaining the origins of the KSA, attendees fast-forwarded into the future with a panel dialogue on the impression and implications of generative AI.
“I think the paradigm shift we’re seeing with generative AI is going to be as transformative as the internet, perhaps even more so because the pace of adoption is much faster now,” mentioned Microsoft’s Soundar Srinivasan.
The panel additionally featured Jennat Jounaidi, a scholar at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School and member of Innovators for Purpose, a nonprofit that seeks to empower younger folks from traditionally marginalized teams to turn into innovators.
“I’m interested to see how generative AI shapes my upbringing as well as the lives of future generations, and I think it’s a pivotal moment to decide how we can best develop and incorporate AI into all of our lives,” Jounaidi mentioned.
Panelists famous that as we speak’s issues round AI are essential, resembling its potential to perpetuate inequality and amplify misinformation. But additionally they mentioned the expertise’s potential to drive advances in areas like sustainability and well being care.
“I came to Kendall Square to do my PhD in AI at MIT back when the internet was called the ARPA-Net… so a while ago,” mentioned Jeremy Wertheimer SM ’89, PhD ’96. “One of the goals I had again then was to create a program to learn all biology papers. We’re not fairly there but, however I believe we’re on the cusp, and it’s very thrilling.
Above all else, the panelists characterised AI as a possibility. Despite all that’s been achieved in Kendall Square so far, the prevailing feeling on the occasion was pleasure for the future.
“Generative AI is giving us chance to stop working in siloes,” Jounaidi mentioned. “Many people in this room go back to their companies and think about corporate responsibility, and I want to expand that to creating shared value in companies by seeking out the community and the people here. I think that’s important, and I’m excited to see what comes next.”