By: AUSTYN ELLESE MAYFIELD
If a deep eye-roll is still your reflexive response when someone pays for a latte with an Apple Watch, you might meet the inaugural product from Thync with equal parts indignation and skepticism. But in June, the Boston- and San Francisco-based startup launched an app-driven device that promises users something most wearable tech doesn’t offer: control.
“Most wearables are sensors, so they only track what you do, like how many steps you take or your heart rate,” explains Dr. Jamie Tyler, one of Thync’s cofounders and its chief science officer. “Thync actually allows you to modulate your biology and synchronize your brain activity instead of just sensing it.”
Thync’s technology builds on existing transcranial direct current stimulation techniques. “We saw all of these developments in neuroscience happening and said, ‘Why should this only be available at prescription and therapeutic levels?’ ” Tyler says. But given the complex science involved, the device itself is surprisingly straightforward. A small triangular module sticks to the brow bone of the wearer, who uses the app to stream waveforms—dubbed “vibes”—via Bluetooth to the device. Users choose either energy vibes to rev up or calm vibes to wind down, sending low-level electrical currents to nerves in the head and, Tyler says, stimulating brain regions that regulate the sympathetic nervous system.
Tyler admits that when it comes to regulating mood, it’s the company’s approach that’s innovative, not the concept. “There are many things people already do to modulate mood: We drink coffee or alcohol, we meditate or exercise, some people take energy supplements or take drugs. But there’s a new menu item now.”
The wacky thing is: It might work. On a rather unremarkable Tuesday, I trekked to Technology Square to hear Tyler give a short talk about the neuroscience behind stress and sleep disorders—and to try Thync firsthand. With a laundry list of to-do items left to complete that evening (including doing actual laundry), I opted for the energy vibe. I used the handy self-facing camera mode inside the Thync app to check the placement of the device, selected the “Alert” program and pressed play.
After 15 minutes of head-tingling sensations (and looking a bit like a precog), I strode out onto Broadway feeling like a better version of myself. I went on to clean the guest bedroom and kitchen, finish two loads of laundry in record time and masterfully handle a debate with my husband. Possible placebo effects aside, I effectively crushed my Tuesday, a day usually reserved for Hulu binging and socially acceptable amounts of apathy.
Thync has intrigued investors too, raising $13 million in its fall funding round. The first iteration of the product is only supported on iOS devices, but it’s anticipated that Android users will be able to join the mind games later this year. As for what’s next, Tyler hopes to create a second generation of products that are smaller, more customizable and, perhaps, capable of tackling other emotions.
“I can’t think of anything as cool as something that can basically give you a state of bliss or calm on demand,” Tyler says. “On a cool factor scale of 1 to 10, this is a 10+.”
The Future Is Now!
Or it at least feels that way in the Boston area. Between our buzzing startup scene and the research of our world-class hospitals and universities, th
By Improper Staff | Photo Credit: Mars renderings: Bryan Versteeg / Mars One | July 31, 2015
Out of This World
BY: SARAH HAGMAN
Somerville resident Chris Patil is in the running for the trip of a lifetime: a one-way ticket to Mars. Two years ago, the scientific editor—and 200,000 other people—submitted applications to Mars One, a group hoping to send a crew to the planet in 2026. “My 9-year-old self would kick my ass if I didn’t apply,” says Patil, now one of 100 finalists. The 24 astronauts will be selected in the fall of 2016; in the meantime, we chatted with him about the next giant leap for mankind.
SO WHAT WOULD YOU PACK? People expect me to say I’d bring a picture of my mom, which I wouldn’t. I would take electronic versions of those sorts of things. Every cubic centimeter that I can fill with something that’s non-essential, I would fill with spices because they’re very efficient. You don’t have to use a lot of them; years’ and years’ supply of spices fit into a kilogram of mass, and it would be hugely psychologically beneficial to be able to flavor our food in interesting ways. And I love to cook…. We’d be eating, at first, things that we brought from Earth and then increasingly supplementing it with food that we grew. Obviously that would be pretty much a vegan diet, although I have hopes that things like small fish and crickets might be brought with the astronauts. But we’ll definitely be eating our greens on the red planet.
WHAT WOULD YOU WANT IN A CREWMATE? Someone who’s forgiving. The one thing that’s true of all of us is that we’re all going to make mistakes.… I’d also like them to have technical sophistication and the ability to learn. You couldn’t put four empathetic people with no other abilities on a rocket ship to Mars and expect them to do well.
WHAT WOULD THEIR RESPONSIBILITIES BE? One is scientific research, which to me is one of the most important motivating reasons to go to Mars. There are questions we can ask and answer there that we can’t answer on Earth—having to do with the origin of the planet and whether the planet ever hosted life or maybe, fantasy result, maybe it still does somewhere deep under the surface—that we just can’t get done with robotic explorers. Aside from the research, things like growing crops to supplement our diet, maintaining the atmospheric control system, will be a bigger part of your life than being a home owner on Earth; that’s for sure. And then the other part is preparing the habitation for expansion. Mars One’s plan involves sending a new crew of four individuals every two years and two months. Things like constructing habitats, covering them with Martian soil so that they’re protected from radiation, digging to expand new territories that can be pressurized and lived in—so when the next crew arrives, the first crew can basically say, “Here are the keys; welcome to your home.”
WHAT QUESTIONS ARE YOU STILL TRYING TO ANSWER? One question I have is, how are we going to get the money? Mars One is this hybrid public-private partnership. The mission itself is not-for-profit, but it’s going to receive funds from the private arm of the organization, and they’re going to do things like sell the broadcast rights to the landing…. All that payout comes at the end of the beginning when we’ve trained astronauts for 10-12 years, bought a rocket, figured out all of the technical details and gotten everyone to Mars. Why would anyone invest in that right now when they could do something else with their money? And so I don’t understand the funding model. I guess I’m skeptical.
BUT YOU THINK IT’S WORTH PURSUING? I think it’s a great opportunity to encourage kids to pursue technical fields. Why should I care about math? You need to know about math because you need to know about rocket trajectories. You need to know about it because someday a rocket is going to take you to your new home somewhere other than Earth. But if you want to be a part of that, you really need to study math. And kids get it right away.
By Improper Staff
A Germ of an Idea
By: ALEXANDRA CAVALLO
David Whitlock hasn’t showered in more than a decade. He doesn’t need to. The chemical engineer and cofounder ofAOBiome—a Cambridge startup pioneering the use of live bacteria in skin health products—practices what he preaches.
“It’s a crazy data point! He doesn’t have any skin issues; he doesn’t have any body odor,” says Jasmina Aganovic, an MIT grad and general manager of AOBiome’s new line of consumer products, Mother Dirt. “A lot of people think we need all these hygiene routines to be clean or to be healthy, but we’re starting to see that’s certainly not the case.”
That’s the idea behind Mother Dirt, which launched last month and includes a probiotic body mist, a cleanser and a shampoo. “The core technology is built around this bacteria that we used to have on our skin a long time ago, but we’ve wiped it out with a lot of modern hygiene habits,” Aganovic explains. “This bacteria is actually a keystone species for the skin; it has a huge impact on all the other microorganisms that exist on your skin. The fact that we’ve been wiping it out has created more of an opportunity for the ‘bad guys’ to take over.”
Those “bad guys,” she says, result in skin conditions ranging from acne to psoriasis. “Interestingly enough, all these skin issues are only present in very developed countries.” Mother Dirt aims to reintroduce those healthy bacteria to the skin’s ecosystem, where they consume sweat, resulting, Aganovic says, in clearer, healthier skin and, as Whitlock’s example suggests, less body odor.
“People think you need to use deodorant to not have body odor, and that’s not true,” Aganovic says. “Body odor is more of a modern challenge.”
For the record, Aganovic and many of her AOBiome colleagues don’t subscribe to the Mother Dirt regimen as stringently as Whitlock does (she still uses deodorant and makeup). But, she marvels, “I don’t have to use a moisturizer anymore. It’s cool to see your skin change that way.”
As for the challenge of selling a skin care product with “dirt” in its name? “We want to start a discussion about rethinking clean. We wanted a name that would challenge people, but could also turn into a rallying cry.”
By Improper Staff
Waste Not
By: JONATHAN SOROFF
The next time someone tells you to “Eat shit,” it might actually be your doctor.
That’s because Boston is an epicenter for a cringe-inducing yet potentially breakthrough treatment: FMT, or fecal microbiota transplant. Simply put, it’s transferring the stool of one person into another to treat illness or infection. Dr. Alan Moss, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a gastroenterologist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, did the first clinical trial of FMT for use on patients with Crohn’s disease; his second clinical trial just got underway. So what exactly led him to think putting one person’s excrement into another was a good idea? Its astonishing success rate at treating a potentially fatal imbalance of a bacterium called Clostridium difficile. C. diff is an exceedingly common problem for individuals who have been treated aggressively with antibiotics, which can upset the natural flora of the digestive tract. Doctors have long struggled to treat it, and it turns out that FMT is an effective cure in 90 percent of cases. “The FDA said it would turn a blind eye on treating C. diff with FMT,” Moss says, “but now we’re looking into its use in treating Crohn’s disease, colitis and certain forms of obesity. Hence the clinical trial, to determine if it’s A) safe and B) effective.” So far, two published trials—one in Canada and one in Europe—have had opposing results, but interest in the scientific community remains keen. “There are two hypotheses at work here,” Moss explains. “One is that you need a diverse mix of bacteria, and one is that you need bacteria that produce certain proteins.”
So how, exactly, is FMT carried out? “It can be done three ways: through a spray administered like a colonoscopy, through a nasogastric tube or in capsule form,” Moss says. Here too, Greater Boston is leading the way. OpenBiomeis a Medford-based nonprofit that began producing freeze-dried stool capsules three years ago, and two local companies, Cambridge’s Seres Therapeutics and Boston’s Vedanta Biosciences, are developing capsules for commercial use. The squeamish might not want to contemplate the production process, but essentially, healthy donors are identified by a rigorous screening process (less than 10 percent meet the criteria) and paid for what the rest of us flush down the toilet. “It remains to be seen whether it will work on anything other than C. diff,” Moss says. “But there certainly seems to be some promise, and it’s possible that FMT could help people with really difficult chronic diseases.”
By Improper Staff | Photo Credit: Tufts University
Cheese Whiz
By: SARAH HAGMAN
Benjamin Wolfe is looking to break the mold—and bacteria and algae and yeast. “We’re the NSA of microbes,” says the Tufts professor. “We’re tapping into the communication networks to understand what they’re saying to each other and how we might be able to use that communication to control them.”
After completing his dissertation studying fungi (including “those Super Mario Bros.’ mushrooms”), Wolfe joined a project led by Harvard researcher Rachel Dutton, surveying more than 200 types of cheeses from around the world, plus salami, kimchee, kombucha and other fermented goods. So why cheese? It’s a simple and accessible way to study the ecology and evolution of microbes: “You don’t have to get in a submarine or inside someone’s intestines in order to study it.”
He’s hoping his research will help achieve a better understanding of infectious diseases. But Wolfe’s work also helps refine the taste and appearance of cheese-mongers’ products, sent to Wolfe’s lab from Vermont, California and the UK. (And locals can tap his expertise at select Formaggio Kitchen tastings.)
Wolfe says his research has led him to a finer appreciation of the cheesemaking craft, explaining, “People have a very simple view of cheese going from liquid milk to a solid mass that’s then suddenly delicious.” And his fondness goes beyond the lab—though his homemade attempt, the South End Tomme, took a churn for the worse and proved too bitter compared to his standby, Camembert. “I’m a bloomy rind guy,” he says. “They tend to be very soft and creamy and fairly low-complexity in their flavor profile, but can have some really delicious funk in there that the microbes are providing as they slowly rot the cheese.” Yum.
By Improper Staff
Holy Cow!
By: CHERYL FENTON
Put the smell test on the back burner. Safe Food Scientific Inc. has invented a more scientific way to figure out if the beef in your fridge is safe to eat. After more than three years of research and development, the Lexington-based biotech firm has launched Beef-Fresh Sensors, featuring a liquid biosensor that measures bacterial contamination levels.
“As food supply lines extend farther across the globe, the vulnerabilities inherent in the system become even more pronounced,” says Donald McAlister, SFS’s chief executive officer. “You can quite literally see recalls and reports of adulterated food every day.” According to the CDC, food-borne bacteria cause an estimated 48 million illnesses, 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths each year in the U.S. SFS hopes to put a dent in those numbers with its sensor. Here’s how it works: As protein is consumed by bacteria, it emits a specific type of gas. The sensor detects this gas and alerts you when the levels get too high by changing color from yellow to blue. Simply slide a single-use sensor into an airtight container with the raw meat and look before you cook.
One catch: It’s not a one-sensor-fits-all scenario. Bacteria growth is affected by the type of proteins in the food, so SFS will be releasing sensors for pork, poultry, lamb and fish in the coming months, with deli meat not far behind. Consider them a lab in a tab.
By Improper Staff
Garden Variety
By: MEGHAN KAVANAUGH
Forget farm-to-table—the newest push for local produce is hitting even closer to home, thanks to a Grove aquaponic ecosystem that takes root right in your kitchen. Complete with an aquarium and sites for growing fruits, vegetables and herbs that all work together to nourish one another, the self-sustaining bookcase-sized gardens are meant to be “a slice of nature in your home,” explains Grove Labs cofounder Gabe Blanchet. The first prototype filled a windowsill in the MIT frat room he shared with cofounder Jamie Byron; now 50 Groves are being tested by early adopters, with an official launch planned for the fall. Expect more customization capabilities, Blanchet says, adding that while the website notes a $2,000-$5,000 price range, discussions are ongoing about monthly rental options to make the product more accessible.
Not the green-thumbed type? There’s an app for that. Grove OS combines social networking and reminders about watering to ensure even novice gardeners can reap a harvest. But don’t think you won’t get your hands dirty. “We don’t want to tell our customers that it’s a total hands-off experience because the magic is that it’s hands on, and you will come out of this knowing how to garden and grow food,” Blanchet says. “I think one of the biggest impacts we can have as a company is to inspire people to not just consume mindlessly, and to be much more conscious of what they’re eating and where it’s from.”
By Improper Staff
Hatching Grounds
By: SARAH HAGMAN
Got a great idea that needs some nurturing? Here’s a guide to five quite different local incubators, plus some of the startups that call them home.
By Improper Staff
Grey Matters
By: JACQUELINE HOUTON
Local researchers and clinicians are exploring truly innovative approaches to treating brain injuries and illnesses. Here are three that might just blow your mind.
Transcranial LED Therapy
“Sending light into the brain from outside the skull?” says Margaret Naeser, a research professor of neurology at BU School of Medicine and research linguist for the Boston VA. “I thought it was the craziest thing I’d ever heard.” But that’s exactly what she’s doing in her current study with Gulf War veterans, employing a device equipped with LEDs that deliver red and near-infrared light to the scalp and nostrils. She’s building on her pilot study published in theJournal of Neurotrauma, which noted improvements in memory and executive function in 11 patients with traumatic brain injury, who also reported better sleep and relief from some PTSD symptoms. “When there’s brain damage, you have cells that aren’t working properly,” Naeser explains. Exposing cells’ mitochondria to the red and near-infrared light seems to spur energy production. It also seems to affect nitric oxide diffusion in cells, which in turn increases blood flow. “So we’re doing two things: Number one we’re improving cellular respiration and functioning, and number two we’re increasing blood circulation to the area that damaged cell is located.” She hopes this line of inquiry could lead to treatments for dementia and early-stage Alzheimer’s as well as traumatic brain injury—but it’s very early. “We’re the first ones doing this particular program with humans,” she notes, adding with a laugh, “Everything else has been with mice.”
Neurologic Music Therapy
For Brian Harris, music is medicine. “There’s no other stimulus on earth with such global brain activation,” says the local neurologic music therapist, who founded neuro-rehab company MedRhythms last year. “What we’ve found recently through neuroimaging and neuroscience research is that music engages our entire brain, so our emotional centers but also our language centers, motor centers and cognitive centers.” Working in homes as well as inpatient and outpatient facilities, MedRhythms aims to harness that power to address the effects of traumatic brain injury, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease and stroke, which often robs patients of speech. “We know that people who can’t speak can often sing. So we teach people to speak again through what looks like singing. What that’s actually doing is recruiting the undamaged parts of the brain to take over language functioning.” Similarly, Harris says, rhythm work may help patients with mobility issues. “We met one person who had a stroke, and he was struggling to walk, using a cane and walking very slowly. He was able to walk about 40 feet at a time before he fatigued, and he was getting physical therapy five or six times a week,” he recalls. “We had one session, and at the end he was walking 250 feet without a cane at a twice-as-fast tempo.”
Deep Brain Stimulation
“One hundred thousand people with Parkinson’s in the United States now have a deep-brain-stimulation device. And when it’s on, they don’t tremor. They almost forget that it’s in. Our hope would be that we’d have a similar effect, just for different symptoms,” says psychiatrist Darin Dougherty, director of the Neurotherapeutics Division at Mass. General Hospital. Awarded a $30 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Dougherty and neurosurgeon Emad Eskandar are working on a first-of-its-kind implantable device meant to monitor and respond to signals across multiple brain structures in real time—and combat symptoms affecting all too many returning soldiers. “It’s a closed-loop deep-brain-stimulation device to treat many of the disorders that the veterans are coming home with. That includes PTSD, substance abuse, traumatic brain injury, depression.” One year into the five-year project, they’ve already developed the device, working with Cambridge’s Draper Labs. Now comes the hard part: “We’re decoding brain signals to know what signal should trigger firing of the device and stimulate another brain area to mitigate the symptoms.” It’s a tall order: Dougherty notes that while the motor system affected in Parkinson’s is “tremendously complicated,” it has nothing on affect and cognition. “It’s very high risk and high stakes,” he says, “which is challenging but also exciting.”
By Improper Staff
Moods On Demand
By: AUSTYN ELLESE MAYFIELD
If a deep eye-roll is still your reflexive response when someone pays for a latte with an Apple Watch, you might meet the inaugural product from Thync with equal parts indignation and skepticism. But in June, the Boston- and San Francisco-based startup launched an app-driven device that promises users something most wearable tech doesn’t offer: control.
“Most wearables are sensors, so they only track what you do, like how many steps you take or your heart rate,” explains Dr. Jamie Tyler, one of Thync’s cofounders and its chief science officer. “Thync actually allows you to modulate your biology and synchronize your brain activity instead of just sensing it.”
Thync’s technology builds on existing transcranial direct current stimulation techniques. “We saw all of these developments in neuroscience happening and said, ‘Why should this only be available at prescription and therapeutic levels?’ ” Tyler says. But given the complex science involved, the device itself is surprisingly straightforward. A small triangular module sticks to the brow bone of the wearer, who uses the app to stream waveforms—dubbed “vibes”—via Bluetooth to the device. Users choose either energy vibes to rev up or calm vibes to wind down, sending low-level electrical currents to nerves in the head and, Tyler says, stimulating brain regions that regulate the sympathetic nervous system.
Tyler admits that when it comes to regulating mood, it’s the company’s approach that’s innovative, not the concept. “There are many things people already do to modulate mood: We drink coffee or alcohol, we meditate or exercise, some people take energy supplements or take drugs. But there’s a new menu item now.”
The wacky thing is: It might work. On a rather unremarkable Tuesday, I trekked to Technology Square to hear Tyler give a short talk about the neuroscience behind stress and sleep disorders—and to try Thync firsthand. With a laundry list of to-do items left to complete that evening (including doing actual laundry), I opted for the energy vibe. I used the handy self-facing camera mode inside the Thync app to check the placement of the device, selected the “Alert” program and pressed play.
After 15 minutes of head-tingling sensations (and looking a bit like a precog), I strode out onto Broadway feeling like a better version of myself. I went on to clean the guest bedroom and kitchen, finish two loads of laundry in record time and masterfully handle a debate with my husband. Possible placebo effects aside, I effectively crushed my Tuesday, a day usually reserved for Hulu binging and socially acceptable amounts of apathy.
Thync has intrigued investors too, raising $13 million in its fall funding round. The first iteration of the product is only supported on iOS devices, but it’s anticipated that Android users will be able to join the mind games later this year. As for what’s next, Tyler hopes to create a second generation of products that are smaller, more customizable and, perhaps, capable of tackling other emotions.
“I can’t think of anything as cool as something that can basically give you a state of bliss or calm on demand,” Tyler says. “On a cool factor scale of 1 to 10, this is a 10+.”
By Improper Staff | Photo Credit: Huggable: M.I.T. Media Lab's Personal Robots Group
The Robot Will See You Now
By: MATT MARTINELLI
You might be meeting these three locally developed robots in a hospital near you.
RP-VITA
Hailed as a major step forward for telemedicine, the RP-VITA is now scooting through hospital hallways thanks to Bedford-based iRobot, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary. This bot can be set up to move on its own or be controlled by a remote operator. Once bedside, RP-VITA can tap into data from the medical machines and link up with a doctor, nurse or pharmacist or even a family member, streamlining communication for care decisions. A nurse or doctor can even use RP-VITA to lead rounds or discharge a patient.
Huggable
Medical pros can sometimes seem intimidating to the sick kids they’re trying to treat. That’s why doctors at the MIT Media Lab’s Personal Robots Group created Huggable, a blue teddy bear bot that helps pediatric patients out of their shells. With a high-pitched voice, light-up eyes and moveable arms, the furry friend can interact with patients and, its creators hope, help relieve their stress and anxiety. Huggable is currently hanging out at Boston Children’s Hospital as part of a clinical study on the effect of social robots on patient care.
QC Bot
To cut down on the time wasted lugging supplies or prescriptions through cavernous hospitals, Cambridge’s Vecna Technologies created the QC Bot. It looks just like any ordinary pill-supply cabinet, but you might see it roaming the halls on its own. Don’t worry—it’s locked! The pharmacist or supply manager simply loads up the device, uses the touchscreen to type in a destination, such as a nurse station or patient room, and off it goes with the help of its navigation system.
Digging robots, but want to avoid hospitals altogether? Soft Robotics, a Cambridge-based company, is working on keeping you a bit healthier. Its food-handling grippers can be attached to various robotic systems, replacing human hands in the packaging process for produce such as tomatoes, peppers and strawberries. “They all vary in wetness, size and weight, but this can safely grip it without breaking it,” says Carl Vause, CEO of the 2-year-old company. In addition to addressing labor-shortage gaps in packaging plants, the cleanable grippers could help eliminate E. coli and other bacteria introduced by human workers along the conveyor line. “We hope it can be an answer to harvesting as well in the future,” Vause says. “Last year in California, 20 percent of strawberries rotted in the fields.”
By Improper Staff
Take Charge
By: MEGHAN KAVANAUGH
With the latest in solar- and magnetic-based technology coming out of the area, it’s time to cut the cord on your relationship with your wall outlet and go off the grid.
Soofa
Recharge your own battery—and plug in your phone while you’re at it—by taking a load off at a Soofa Bench. Equipped with two USB ports powered by the sun, the benches were beta-tested around the city last summer, and Soofa’s latest expansion doubles its reach with 11 locations in Cambridge, showing off a revamped product with modifications like a slanted solar panel (so users can’t use it as a table). There is already international demand, but data strategy lead Isabel Munson says the company’s focus is on expanding domestically beyond their Cambridge home, and seven other Soofa states, before charging overseas: “We want to see a Soofa Bench in every city, every neighborhood.”
WrightGrid
In the era of “pics or it didn’t happen,” a low battery warning and no charger in sight can mean certain social death. “We use our phones to do virtually everything today, and yet if we forget to bring our charger with us everywhere we go, it’s back to the Stone Age,” says Ryan Wright, founder and CEO of the Somerville-based WrightGrid. Its free solar-powered stations found at festivals and college campuses along the East Coast each have 10 lockers with universal charging cords and resettable codes to keep phones secure as users grab a quick bite to eat or do some shopping. Next up is a focus on municipality placement—stay tuned for news of a local pilot project.
WiTricity
Watertown- based WiTricity is poised to make powering up an afterthought with its magnetic resonance technology, which can provide a charge through surfaces like granite, wood, plastic, glass and even skin. “With WiTricity, consumers will be able to energy ‘snack’ throughout the day, always staying charged and connected by simply dropping a phone on their desk or in the cup holder of their automobile,” CEO Alex Gruzen says. The company has licensed its technology to companies like Intel and Toyota for use in cellphones and electric cars, and Gruzen says to expect wireless charging capabilities to be built into new smartphones by the end of this year.
By Improper Staff
The Air Up There
By: MATT MARTINELLI
Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need…Well, maybe we do need roads to land these next-generation vehicles. But three local ventures are banking on finding the skies a whole lot friendlier and more convenient. We sized ’em up to see if they’re ready for takeoff.
By Improper Staff
Journalism’s New Beat
GroundTruth
By: JONATHAN SOROFF
It’s tough to take journalism seriously these days. NBC eminence Brian Williams was disgraced for making things up; CNN oracle Anderson Cooper is on a continuous road show with Real Housewives ringleader Andy Cohen. No wonder many Americans admit to getting their news from spoofs like The Daily Show. So who can you trust to deliver accurate international news? One local source is blazing a new trail: The GroundTruth Project, a nonprofit operating in partnership with WGBH in Boston that officially launched in April with the publication of “Foreverstan,” an in-depth examination of our attempts to extricate ourselves from the longest war in American history. It’s the brainchild ofCharles Sennott, an award-winning journalist who founded the online outlet GlobalPost and served as the Middle East and European bureau chief for The Boston Globe. “ ‘Groundtruth’ is actually a technical term, used for things like calibrating satellites,” Sennott explains. “It refers to facts that are checked at a specific location by a person who is actually there. Too many young journalists are writing from cubicles, thousands of miles away from the events they’re describing.”
Hence GroundTruth’s mission, which Sennott defines as “training, empowering and enabling the next generation of correspondents to identify and tell the stories that will impact their generation,” To that end, GroundTruth offers a multimedia platform that partners with mainstream media outlets to spread the work of emerging journalists around the world, often pairing young correspondents who can to speak to an American audience with other young journalists from the region where the reporting is being done. For example, GroundTruth correspondents were investigating economic disparities in Nigeria in April of last year when the terrorist group Boko Haram kidnapped more than 300 schoolgirls. The GroundTruth correspondents made the connection between the dire situation in Nigeria, where more than half of people between the ages of 15 and 35 are neither employed nor in school, with the tide of violence that gave rise to the rogue group. The story was carried by The New York Times, and other media outlets that have partnered with GroundTruth include NBC News, Public Radio International, and the Atlantic online. “The future of innovation is partnerships,” Sennott says simply. “GroundTruth is based on that.”
BINJ
By: JACQUELINE HOUTON
“When I found out The Nation funds the hardcore investigative stuff through the Nation Institute, a light bulb went off,” says Chris Faraone, veteran muckraker and the founder of the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism (BINJ—pronounced “Binge”—for short). Launching this fall, BINJ started brewing about eight months ago, when Faraone attended a conference in San Francisco. “In California, you can’t turn left or right without finding a nonprofit news outlet. And here we are in Boston, the home of independent and alternative journalism, where a lot of this stuff was done for the first time, if we’re talking about the Sons of Liberty or about The Boston Phoenix and The Real Paper. This is the place where this is supposed to happen.”
The plan is for a highly collaborative project-based model in which BINJ works with existing media outlets as well as freelance journalists assembled into teams using products like Asana and Slack. “We’re not starting a new news organization,” Faraone explains. “The whole point is to do the kind of work that operations don’t have the resources to do but would like to do. I’ve been going to the local community papers and saying, ‘What’s on your wish list?’ ” A project could involve connecting an outlet with an expert on healthy eating and urban farming—topics Faraone found on many wish lists. Other projects might involve data-driven investigative work beyond a partner outlet’s bandwidth. “Digging through campaign finance records, looking at bum contracts, Statehouse corruption… the stories that take a lot of legwork, death by a thousand paper cuts, we’ll be doing those stories.” Others might facilitate content sharing, widening the reach of stories from small papers without a web presence, for instance, or translating content from and to publications like El Planeta.
Whatever the project, one constant is an emphasis on work with emerging journalists. “Let’s train the next generation to write about their own city,” says Faraone, who’s worked closely with Roxbury nonprofit Press Pass TV, which teaches media production to underserved youth and is acting as BINJ’s fiscal sponsor while it cements its 501(c)(3) status. Both groups will be on hand on Aug. 13 for a pop-up newsroom in Dudley Square, where BINJ will distribute publications from partners, offer vintage typewriters for impromptu compositions and set up a news desk. “We’ll be interviewing people about their experiences, their neighborhoods: Where are the leads? What’s going on?” Faraone says. “Microcoverage of even a place like Beacon Hill is inadequate. There are issues that people have all across the city. We want to hear what they are. We’ll be making media in the process.”
By Improper Staff | Photo Credit: Neri Oxman: Noah Kalina
Futuristic Fashions
ALEXANDRA CAVALLO
Boston can sometimes feel like New York’s schlubby kid sister, especially when it comes to high fashion. But the Big Apple has nothing on our tech scene, and it’s the intersection of these two worlds that caught the interest of Michelle Finamore, Penny Vinik curator of fashion arts at the Museum of Fine Arts.
“Boston is really such a hotbed for all of this technological innovation, and so it was just a really interesting angle,” says Finamore, who is working with fellow MFA curators on #techstyle, an exhibit that will be on view in the Henry and Lois Foster Gallery this spring. “[We thought] OK, what is happening here and what is happening abroad, and how can we kind of capture all of that excitement? What we would like to do is present the current state of the industry, how they’re using technology in various ways and how it’s really transforming fashion and the way designers are designing today. I do feel like this is an area where Boston can differentiate itself from, say, New York, because it’s where these worlds really come together.”
One of the stars of the show is a garment created by MIT Media Lab artist, architect and professor Neri Oxman in collaboration with Dutch designer Iris van Herpen and 3-D-printed by Stratasys. The skirt and cape debuted at Paris Fashion Week and served as an inspiration for the exhibit. “I was on the committee for the Maud Morgan prize, and Neri was one of the people I nominated,” Finamore says. “We visited her and we learned a bit more about what she was doing at the MIT Media Lab, and it was really fascinating. … It started us down this road of thinking about what’s happening not only in Boston, but more abroad.”
The exhibit will feature a range of talents culled from Greater Boston—like Descience, Ministry of Supply and Nervous System—and from across the globe. “We have [the exhibit] divided into two different sections, one that is on production, how these new technologies have affected the way garments are actually made and produced and manufactured, and the other side is on performance,” she says. “That’s going to be about clothing that interacts with your body in really interesting ways.” Some such designs include a solar-paneled dress that can charge cellphones and a newly commissioned work from Lauren Bowker, a designer who’s previously created a sort of “mood hat” that changes colors based upon brain activity.
Finamore says they also plan on presenting a number of events leading up the exhibit’s opening, including Fashion 4WRD, a Sept. 17 fashion and tech panel with the MIT Enterprise Forum. “It will be a whole year of activity that’s going to focus on how Boston is a very innovative and exciting place to be.”
By Improper Staff
Lazy Apps
By: ALEXANDRA CAVALLO
In Pixar’s 2008 dystopian imagining of the future, WALL-E, technology has evolved to the point where humans no longer have to do a single thing for themselves. Obese and bloated, they float from place to place on hover-chairs, pushing buttons to have their whims met. Seven years on, humanity has not yet reached that level of tech-enabled lethargy—but we’re getting closer. We rounded up four local apps designed for the lazy humanoid in all of us.
Too lazy to plan your own night out? Download THRSDAY.
Launched by Harvard Business School grads in April, Thrsday invites users to pick a Thursday evening for a big night out, enter the number of people in the group and indicate the amount of money they’re willing to drop. A “personal concierge” does the rest, planning an evening of entertainment commensurate with the users’ budget. All a would-be party animal has to do is press a couple of buttons (and have a couple of friends). Ideal for the lazy social butterfly.thrsday.com.
Too lazy to get your ass to the bar in time to get a seat for the game? Download SNAGASTOOL.
Created by two Suffolk grads and featured on Shark Tank, SnagaStool is basically OpenTable, but for boozers. A user can log in and reserve a stool at a participating bar, then show up and slide in past—surely disgruntled—fellow patrons at their designated time. Ideal for the lazy bro. snagastool.com.
Too lazy to read like a normal person? Download SPRITZ.
This speed-reading app helmed by an MIT grad says a practiced user can read up to 1,000 words a minute, a rate that equates to, say, putting away War and Peace in roughly nine hours. The app flashes one word at a time across your screen at an accelerated pace, allowing users to read without even moving their eyes. Ideal for the lazy academic.spritzinc.com.
Too lazy to do anything for yourself? Download PINCH.
Unveiled at Boston TechJam, this Jersey-based but Boston-launched app allows users to post a request for literally anything—an iced coffee, a late-night booze delivery—and set a price they deem appropriate for that service. Craving a burrito but don’t feel like braving the rabid Chipotle lunch rush? Maybe it’s worth 20 bucks to you. A user near a Chipotle (or not) can accept your Pinch offer and deliver that ’rito right to your lazy face, in exchange for a crisp Jackson. Ideal for the lazy everyman. pinchfavor.com.
By Improper Staff | Photo Credit: Tiffany Knight Gallery
Flash Forward
What might life be like in 2030? We tapped some local pros for their predictions—plus their picks of other Boston-area innovators pushing us ahead.
Shannon O’Halloran Keating, Boston marketing manager for tech, business and design education company General Assembly
On life in 2030: “HTML and CSS will be part of the elementary school language arts program, user experience design will be taught in high school art classes, and college students will ‘study abroad’ at tech companies.”
On an innovator to watch: “Following in the footsteps of local travel tech giants like Kayak and TripAdvisor, I am really excited about some of the new Boston startups popping up in this space, particularly Wanderu, an app that helps you seamlessly search and book bus and train travel across country…. Hopefully solutions like Wanderu and Bridj—an urban transportation solution connecting areas and routes that are not convenient to the MBTA—will encourage more people to ditch their car in exchange for affordable, eco-friendly and convenient group transportation.”
By Improper Staff
Susan Buck, cofounder of the Women’s Coding Collective and instructor at Wellesley College and the Harvard Extension School
On life in 2030: “Tech will be significantly more diverse. Right now the casual observer might be excused for thinking that the tech industry’s diversity problem is close to being resolved. Yes, it is a topic of serious and repeated conversations, articles, etc., and yes, there are many groups and initiatives focused on encouraging people from underrepresented groups to build and create (rather than simply consume) technology, but progress is slow. In 15 years, we’re looking forward to seeing the fruit of the seeds being planted today.”
On an innovator to watch: “Tech Connection! At this point, many tech companies realize there is a lot they need to do better in terms of recruiting and retaining women, people of color and members of other underrepresented minorities. Tech Connection bridges the gap between companies that are committed to increasing diversity and entry-level talent from underrepresented groups.”
By Improper Staff
Semyon Dukach, managing director of accelerator Techstars in Boston
On life in 2030: “There will be self-flying cars zipping across the sky like in The Jetsons. And there will be no passport control at the border anymore.”
On an innovator to watch: “I think that the Awesome Foundation is worthy of more attention. They just make it so easy to reward all kinds of cool projects and contribute to your community.”
By Improper Staff | Photo Credit: Greg Mentzer
Lisa Genova, neuroscientist and bestselling author of Still Alice and Inside the O’Briens
On life in 2030: “There will be an effective treatment for Alzheimer’s that delays or prevents the progression of the disease. This means that, as with cancer and HIV, we will have Alzheimer’s survivors.”
On an innovator to watch: “I’m really excited about Brain Power, a company founded by neuroscientist Ned Sahin. They’ve created digital smart glasses that act as neuro-assistive devices for people with autism. The devices use game-like apps and data from sensors to help shape skills such as eye contact, emotion, language and self-control.”
By Improper Staff
Jules Pieri, cofounder and CEO of product launch platform The Grommet
On life in 2030: “Fifty percent of venture capital will go to women founders. (The 2011-13 stat was 2.7 percent. That is not a typo!) And our entire notion of how we interact with physical products will change. We will expect almost everything we use to be customizable with our personal data.”
On an innovator to watch: “Boston Healthcare for the Homeless. A former Grommet employee works there as the assistant director of development, and she introduced this organization to me years ago. I am more and more impressed every year for the care they provide to the most challenged population in our city.”
By Improper Staff
Tripp Clemens, interim director of the Emerson Accelerator and co-owner of Windy Films
On life in 2030: “I predict the next wave of innovation in Boston tackles overpopulation. Companies like Getaway and Bridj are jumping on this already. Overpopulation is becoming a tangible pain—too much traffic, crowded subways, wasted energy sources. Not long ago, neighborhoods like Cambridgeport were considered the suburbs. If this centuries-old trend of sprawling continues, imagine dividing up some of the large homes in Duxbury, for example, into multiple apartments? The next Red Line train to Concord is now arriving.”
On an innovator to watch: “I recently had a chance to catch up with Rory and Jen from Oat a few weeks ago and learn more about their story. They’re a team of two that helps companies discover and communicate their brand and identity. Their work has been featured in Communication Arts and Print Magazine, and their stunningly simple use of words and design attracts clients like MIT, Harvard, HBO, Fonts.com and pretty much every great restaurant in town.”
By Improper Staff
Melissa James, founder and CEO of diversity-driven career management firm The Tech Connection
On life in 2030: “Life will be revolutionized by smarter hardware. Humans will have to do less thinking when it comes to appliances at home. Imagine an oven that automatically detects the food you are trying to cook and prepares it accordingly. A few years back, the idea may have seemed far-fetched, but take a look at smart technology today, and we can catch a glimpse of the future.”
On an innovator to watch: “Particularly in the Dudley Square area, where I work, I have seen impressive strides made in the world of tech because of an accelerator called Smarter in the City. It’s the first high-tech accelerator in the Roxbury area of Boston, and seeks to specifically provide an opportunity for entrepreneurs from underrepresented minority communities to develop innovative products and services in the high-tech sector.”
By Improper Staff
Nadeem Mazen, Cambridge city councilor, CEO of animation and software studio Nimblebot and co-owner of makerspace Danger!Awesome
On life in 2030: “By 2030 we should realize just how little of the tech-and-innovation celebration actually makes its way to the working class, economically speaking. I have this vain hope that truly massive, crowdfunded investments will manifest—the ultra-Kickstarter, if you will—in order to promote very unique democratizing ideas in the political realm and tech sector. I am cautiously optimistic that this funding mechanism will actually be a major means of combating economic stagnation.”
On an innovator to watch: “Agora is bringing people together for online town halls to discuss really important issues in a format that allows for debate. There’s a reason SMS messaging, WhatsApp and now Slack have taken over: People want to chat asynchronously, whenever’s convenient, rather than finding a way to be in the same place at the same time for, say, a committee meeting.”
By Improper Staff | Photo Credit: Ian Justice
Malia Lazu, executive director of the Future Boston Alliance
On life in 2030: “My hopeful prediction: Boston will still be a diverse city and mixed cultural experiences will be another ‘thing’ Boston is known for. Imagine Blue Hill Avenue being an ethnic restaurant destination or Grove Hall being a mecca for artists and designers. There is so much culture in these neighborhoods, it makes no sense to not spend the next 15 years supporting the indigenous economy, rather than displacing people.”
On an innovator to watch: “[Joelle Jean-Fontaine of] Kréyol is one of the most cutting-edge designers right now. Epitomizing the amazing creativity Boston can offer the world, her lines are filled with bold prints and feminine cuts that help every woman feel beautiful, and most everything she makes has pockets!”
By Improper Staff
Matt Gross, founder of Mobile Monday Boston and Mobile First Software
On life in 2030: “I’ve been following the digital personal concierge space (Siri, Echo, Magic, Alice, etc.), and I expect by 2030, these systems will have advanced enough that most of us will be using algorithm-based systems to automate our purchases, manage our calendars, post in social media, pay our bills, make investment decisions and a host of other things. I’m looking forward to having those tools but also curious about the impact of a new layer of artificial intelligence operating in society.”
On an innovator to watch: “In my view, Red Point Positioning is one of the most interesting startups in the area. They are in the Internet of Things space and have built proprietary IP for geo-positioning at short ranges, which makes their tech much more powerful than conventional Bluetooth beacons.”
By Improper Staff | Photo Credit: G+M Photographers
Bettina Hein, founder and CEO of YouTube marketing software company Pixability
On life in 2030: “TV as we know it will be dead.…You’ll only tap into apps—Snapchat, HBO, YouTube, HGTV, Tinder—to get what you want, when you want it, from social interaction to laughs, suspense, sex or drama.”
On an innovator to watch: “InsightSquared tops my list because making (visual) sense of your data is the path to success for a business. InsightSquared CEO Fred Shilmover is a nerdy visionary who is going to disrupt Marc Benioff’s Salesforce.com kingdom.”
By Improper Staff
Shannon Whitehead, founder of Factory 45
On life in 2030: “We’re going to be a lot more aware of the changing climate. We’re going to feel it in all of the ways scientists and environmentalists have predicted, and we’re finally going to get serious about trying to alleviate the effects. Renewable and natural energy—resources that we haven’t even thought of yet—will be at the forefront of changing the way we use the earth’s resources.”
On an innovator to watch: “Right now, I’m really intrigued by companies that put a different spin on the idea of ‘waste management.’ It may not be glamorous, but there are a few Boston-based companies that have been really innovative in making new products out of consumer waste. The first one is Preserve, which makes dishware, bath products, kitchenware and a whole slew of other products from recycled plastics. The second is Project Repat, a company that upcycles people’s T-shirts into T-shirt blankets. The average American throws away 82 pounds of textiles per year, so it is hugely important to find ways to keep clothing out of landfills.”
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