Coming Up With Solutions With Global Consequences
Last week marked the beginning of the annual Solve Conference at MIT, which is focused on bringing experienced and inspired people together to solve some of the world’s most challenging problems. The inaugural event, with a full program over four days, attracted students, technologists, philanthropists, business leaders, policymakers and more who discussed technology and innovation and policy issues. To participate in Solve, people must either be researchers working on breakthrough technology or philanthropists supporting social entrepreneurs.
The event was opened by L. Rafael Reif, President of MIT and Jason Pontin, Editor in Chief & Publisher of the MIT Technology Review. The keynote was given by Jeffrey Sachs, Director, Earth Institute, Columbia University and was titled: “Setting Our Sights on Solving the World’s Hardest Problems.”
The following are Solve’s Goals:
- To create a community of like-minded people who are committed to working together on difficult problems, in both traditional and unique formats. People who wish to be accountable to one another for their commitments to creating change.
- To consider specific high-impact challenges each year in four fundamental areas: Learn, Cure, Fuel, Make.
- To transition from ideas to experimentation to scalable implementation.
- To achieve a visible and measurable positive impact on problems of human significance.
- To place MIT at the center of a global network of social change agents who believe that difficult challenges can be overcome through creative applications of technology, business innovation, and smart policy.
Solve is expected to be similar to TED, the World Economic Forum, and the Aspen Ideas Festival, but will be backed by MIT.
Solve has a YouTube channel with lots of videos that ran ahead of the first conference. Videos from last week’s conference are not yet uploaded. The following video is an introduction to Solve provided by MIT’s President L. Rafael Reif.
