THE DALAI LAMA @ MIT 2012
10.14
Beyond Religion: Ethics, Values, & Wellbeing
A Talk by His Holiness the Dalai Lama
RESPONSE BY FR. THOMAS KEATING AND BR. DAVID STEINDL-RAST
October 14, 2012 at 1:30PM- 3:30PM
Venue: Grand Ballroom, Marriott Copley Boston
(It is recommended that you arrive early to allow yourself ample of time for security. Please be seated in the auditorium by 1PM)
SPECIAL APPEARANCE
JAMES TAYLOR
(accompanied by Owen Young)
James Taylor’s music embodies the art of songwriting in its most personal and universal forms. He is a master at describing specific, even autobiographical situations in a way that resonates with people everywhere. In 1971, Taylor was on the cover of Time magazine, heralded as the harbinger of the singer-songwriter era. Four decades later his warm baritone, introspective lyrics and unique guitar playing still blaze a path to which young musicians aspire. He has sold more than 50 million albums throughout his career and has earned 40 gold, platinum, and multi-platinum awards and five GRAMMY Awards. His songs have had a profound influence on songwriters and music lovers from all walks of life: “Fire and Rain,” “Country Road,” “Something in the Way She Moves,” “Mexico,” “Shower the People,” “Your Smiling Face,” “Carolina In My Mind,” “Sweet Baby James,” “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight,” “You Can Close Your Eyes,” “Walking Man,” “Never Die Young,” “Shed a Little Light,” “Copperline,” “Enough to be On Your Way,” “Caroline I See You,” and many more.
In a career marked by artistic triumphs, the past two years for Taylor have been notable for both creative virtuosity and recognition of exceptional achievement. In 2012, he was awarded the distinguished Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government and in 2011, was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama. Both medals are their nation’s highest honors for artistic excellence recognizing “outstanding achievements and support of the arts.” In 2011, Taylor was also honored with a Carnegie Hall Perspectives series, which consisted of four concert evenings presented by Carnegie Hall and featuring Taylor and personally selected musical guests.
Raised in North Carolina, Taylor lives in Massachusetts with his wife, Caroline, and their twins, Henry and Rufus.
Please be Mindful:
-Tickets are non-refundable and non-transferable.
-You will need a physical ticket to gain admission to each event. E-tickets or print outs will not be accepted.
-Be sure to bring your ticket(s) and a Photo ID.
-No recording devices of any kind will be permitted. Your phone/ smartphone should be turned off before security and should remain off during the duration of the event.
-Please arrive early. Allow yourself ample of time to go through security.
-Refrain from bringing large bags and bagpacks. They will not be permitted.
Click here for parking options.
Through the generosity of many, we were pleased to provide free and low cost tickets to students of Boston Public Schools, colleges, and universities. Given the high demands from all quarters and limited seatings, we had to restrict the distribution of tickets to those who responded first. We will make the videos of the events available in time.
10.15
GLOBAL SYSTEMS 2.0
Over 7 billion human beings, degraded environment, declining economies, and soaring consumerism—such is today’s world. We are at a crossroads and our future is perplexing. The challenges that we now face, as a world and as human beings, are both critical and complex; they demand a multi-disciplinary approach to solutions.
The forum will provide practical information from multiple disciplines with the aim of sparking ideas to address complex challenges in industry, academia, government, and the world at large through systems thinking and innovation.
Click here to purchase your ticket
Panel I: Ethics, Economy, and Environment
When: October 15, 2012 9:30AM-11:30AM
(It is recommended that you arrive early to allow yourself ample of time for security. Please be seated in the auditorium by 9AM)
Venue: Kresge Auditorium, MIT
Participants: His Holiness the Dalai Lama, John Sterman, Edward Delong, Penny Chisholm, Kerry Emanuel, Thomas Malone
Panel II: Peace, Governance, and Diminishing Resources
When: October 15, 2012 1:30PM-3:30AM
Venue: Kresge Auditorium, MIT
Participants: His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Deborah Ancona, John Sterman, Rebecca Henderson, Jonathan Foley, James Orbinski, Zeynep Ton
The Center for Ethics is committed to a systems approach to solutions. We live in a complex and interdependent world where we can no longer look at isolated issues for long-term, equitable solutions to regional and global problems. Through this meeting, the Center hopes to encourage multidisciplinary systems thinking and new methods for resolving the most immediate challenges that we face as a society, as a nation, and as an ecosystem.
-Tenzin Priyadarshi, Founding Director, The Center at MITHARMONY
with Blue Heron
When: October 15, 2012 (4PM-5PM)
Venue: MIT Chapel
Part of the Vocal Vibrations Project
The vocal ensemble Blue Heron, directed by Scott Metcalfe, has been acclaimed by The Boston Globe as “one of the Boston music community’s indispensables” and hailed by Alex Ross in The New Yorker for the “expressive intensity” of its interpretations. Combining a commitment to vivid live performance with the study of original source materials and historical performance practices, Blue Heron ranges over a wide and fascinating repertoire, including 15th-century English and Franco-Flemish polyphony, Spanish music between 1500 and 1600, and neglected early 16th-century English music, especially the rich repertory of the Peterhouse partbooks, copied c. 1540 for Canterbury Cathedral. Blue Heron’s first CD, featuring music by Guillaume Du Fay, was released in 2007. In 2010 the ensemble inaugurated a 5-CD series of Music from the Peterhouse Partbooks; two discs have been released so far, of music by Hugh Aston, Robert Jones, Nicholas Ludford, John Mason, and Richard Pygott. All three of Blue Heron’s recordings have received international critical acclaim and the first Peterhouse CD made the Billboard charts.
Blue Heron presents subscription series in Boston and in New York City. The ensemble has appeared at the Boston Early Music Festival; in New York City at The Cloisters, the 92nd Street Y, and Music Before 1800; at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., at Festival Mozaic in San Luis Obispo, California, and at the Berkeley Early Music Festival. Blue Heron is ensemble in residence at the new Center for Early Music Studies at Boston University.
The Center at MIT is a nonpartisan, interdisciplinary think tank dedicated to a vision of global human flourishing based on far-sighted ethical responsibility. We believe that people live more fulfilling and meaningful lives when they are motivated to care for others and make positive contributions to society. The Center works through collaborative inquiry and dialogue with leaders, researchers, and scholars in a variety of fields to promote ethical responsibility, enlightened leadership, and humane values in addressing critical global challenges.
The Center’s educational work focuses on interdisciplinary approaches to teaching ethics, transformative values, and enlightened leadership to the next generation of leaders in science, technology, business, and public policy. The Center develops innovative curricula, pilots its teaching programs at MIT, and makes them widely available to other universities, business schools, and corporate training programs. Our goal is to inspire 21st century leadership with compassionate responsibility for the global and long-term social, economic, and environmental impacts of its decisions.
Please be Mindful:
-Tickets are non-refundable and non-transferable.
-You will need a physical ticket to gain admission to each event. E-tickets or print outs will not be accepted.
-Be sure to bring your ticket(s) and a Photo ID.
-No recording devices of any kind will be permitted. Your phone/ smartphone should be turned off before security and should remain off during the duration of the event.
-Please arrive early. Allow yourself ample of time to go through security.
-Refrain from bringing large bags and bagpacks. They will not be permitted.
-Click here for parking options.
Through the generosity of many, we were pleased to provide free and low cost tickets to students of Boston Public Schools, colleges, and universities. Given the high demands from all quarters and limited seatings, we had to restrict the distribution of tickets to those who responded first. We will make the videos of the events available in time.
AUXILIARY EVENTS
More events and details will be added to this page. Continue to visit us.
Title: Teaching How to Fish: Solving Problems versus Nurturing People in Global Development
Date: October 11, 2012 at 7PM
Venue: MIT Simmons Hall (map)
Event is free and open to public. Your generosity helps bring such high calibre programs to public. If you would like to support the work of The Center, please make a tax deductible contribution here.
Speaker(s): Kentaro Toyama (Co-Founder, Microsoft Research, India) & Manish Bharadwaj (Founder & CEO, Innovators in Health)
Kentaro Toyama (www.kentarotoyama.org) is a researcher in the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley. He is working on a book that argues that the intrinsic growth of people and institutions should be the primary focus of global development. Previously, Toyama co-founded Microsoft Research India, where he started an interdisciplinary research group to understand how electronic technology could support the socio-economic development of the world’s impoverished communities. The group’s projects – including Digital Green, MultiPoint, and Text-Free UI – have been seminal in ICT4D research, even as Toyama has gone on to be a vocal critic of techno-utopian hype in development. Prior to his time in India, he did computer vision research at Microsoft Research in Redmond, WA, USA and Cambridge, UK, and taught mathematics at Ashesi University in Accra, Ghana. Toyama graduated from Yale with a PhD in Computer Science and from Harvard with a bachelors degree in Physics.
Manish Bhardwaj is the CEO and co-founder of Innovators In Health (IIH), a non-profit committed to ensuring that the rural poor suffering from
tuberculosis (TB) get care that matches the best in the world. As of early 2012, IIH provided access to care to a catchment of 85,000 residents in rural Bihar, India.
Prior to IIH, Manish was a co-founder and Vice President at Engim Inc., a private venture backed wireless semiconductor startup. Manish has won several awards including the IBM Research Fellowship, the MIT Graduate Student Council teaching award, and the Compaq Gold Medal. He has Ph.D. and S.M. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Bachelor of Applied Science from the Nanyang Technological University,
Singapore. A native of India, he has lived in Singapore, Indonesia, Austria and the U.S.
Title: Search Inside Yourself
Date: October 12, 2012 at 7PM
Venue: MIT Simmons Hall (map)
Event is free and open to public. Your generosity helps bring such high calibre programs to public. If you would like to support the work of The Center, please make a tax deductible contribution here.
Speaker(s): Chade-Meng Tan, Jolly Good Fellow of Google
Introduced by: Muriel Medard
Chade-Meng Tan (widely known as Meng) was among the earliest engineers to be hired at Google. He and his team worked on ways to improve the quality of the site’s search results and also played a key role in the launch of mobile search. When Google allowed engineers to spend 20% of their time pursuing their passion, Meng decided to spend his time on a cause dear to his heart: Launching a conspiracy to bring about world peace. The conspirators could well be called the compassionati.
Meng believes that world peace can be achieved — but only if people cultivate the conditions for inner peace within themselves. Inner peace, in turn, comes from nurturing emotional intelligence through the practice of mindfulness and meditation. Working with Zen masters, meditation teachers, psychologists and even a CEO, Meng created a seven-week personal growth program named — what else — Search Inside Yourself (SIY). Launched in 2007, Google has had more than 1,000 employees go through SIY with startling results. Participants rate the program at 4.7 on a five-point scale. Anecdotal feedback, among other comments, from many participants is that this program “changed my life.”
Meng then decided to open-source the SIY program by making its principles and components available to companies everywhere. He has written a book titled, Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace), which is being published this month. Meng spoke with Knowledge@Wharton about the SIY program, why emotional intelligence matters, and other lessons he has learned during the past five years as Google’s Jolly Good Fellow (which, seriously, is his job title).
Muriel Médard is a Professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT. She was previously an Assistant Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and a member of the Coordinated Science Laboratory at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. From 1995 to 1998, she was a Staff Member at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in the Optical Communications and the Advanced Networking Groups. Professor Médard received B.S. degrees in EECS and in Mathematics in 1989, a B.S. degree in Humanities in 1990, a M.S. degree in EE 1991, and a Sc D. degree in EE in 1995, all from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge. She has served as an Associate Editor for the Optical Communications and Networking Series of the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, as an Associate Editor in Communications for the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory and as an Associate Editor for the OSA Journal of Optical Networking. She has served as a Guest Editor for the IEEE Journal of Lightwave Technology, the Joint special issue of the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory and the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking on Networking and Information Theory and the IEEE Transactions on Information Forensic and Security: Special Issue on Statistical Methods for Network Security and Forensics. She serves as an associate editor for the IEEE/OSA Journal of Lightwave Technology. She is a member of the Board of Governors of the IEEE Information Theory Society.
Title: Through Gratefulness: A 21st Century Vision of a Transformed World
Date: October 13, 2012 at 3PM
Venue: MIT Simmons Hall (map)
Event is free and open to public. Your generosity helps bring such high calibre programs to public. If you would like to support the work of The Center, please make a tax deductible contribution here.
Speaker(s): Brother David Steindl-Rast
Introduced by: The Reverend Ms. Kim K. Crawford Harvie, Arlington Street Church
Brother David Steindl-Rast, O.S.B.was born in 1926 in Vienna, Austria. He studied art, anthropology, and psychology, receiving a Ph.D. from the University of Vienna. Since 1953 he has been a monk of Mount Saviour Benedictine monastery in New York. He was one of the first Roman Catholics to participate in Buddhist-Christian dialogue.For decades, Brother David has divided his time between periods of a hermit’s life and extensive lecture tours. His audiences included starving students in Zaire and faculty at Harvard and Columbia, Buddhist monks and Sufi retreatants, New Age commune residents and naval cadets, Green Berets and international peace conference participants.
He has contributed to books and periodicals from the Encyclopedia Americana to the New Age Journal. He authored Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer and A Listening Heart, both reprinted and anthologized for more than two decades. Brother David co-authored Belonging to the Universe, with physicist, Fritjof Capra, and The Ground We Share on Buddhist and Christian practice with Robert Aitken Roshi. His most recent book is Deeper Than Words: Living the Apostles’ Creed.
Brother David co-founded www.gratefulness.org, a website supporting ANG*L (A Network for Grateful Living). It reaches more than 8,000 visitors daily, from over 200 countries.
Rev. Kim K. Crawford Harvie
Senior Minister, Arlington Street Church, Boston, Massachusetts
Kim Crawford Harvie was raised in Concord, Massachusetts and graduated with honors from Middlebury College (Vermont) and Harvard Divinity School. Ordained into the Unitarian Universalist ministry in 1984, she served congregations on Cape Cod, most notably in Provincetown at the height of the AIDS crisis. In 1989, she was called to Arlington Street Church in Boston, “gathered in love and service for justice and peace,” where she continues to serve as Senior Minister.
Tenzin Gyatso, the XIVth Dalai Lama, is a moral figure and spiritual leader revered worldwide. He was born to a farming family on July 6, 1935 in a small village called Taktser in northeastern Tibet. He was recognized, in accordance with Tibetan tradition, at the age of two as the reincarnation of his predecessor, the XIIIth Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lamas are believed to be Embodiments of Compassion, who choose to reincarnate for the purpose of serving humanity. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1989, he is universally respected as a spokesman for the compassionate and peaceful resolution of human conflict. Most recently he was awarded the United States Congressional Gold Medal in 2007 in recognition for his “many enduring and outstanding contributions to peace, non-violence, human rights and religious understanding.” He has traveled extensively, speaking on subjects including universal responsibility, love, compassion and kindness.His Holiness is committed to the promotion of the human values of compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, contentment and self-discipline – what he calls secular ethics – and also promotes religious harmony and understanding among the world’s major religious traditions.
Deborah Ancona is the Seley Distinguished Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and Faculty Director of the MIT Leadership Center.Deborah’s pioneering research into how successful teams operate has highlighted the critical importance of managing outside the team’s boundary as well as inside it. This research has led directly to the concept of X-Teams as a vehicle for driving innovation within large organizations. Her book, X-teams: How to Build Teams That Lead, Innovate, and Succeed was published by Harvard Business School Press in June, 2007.Deborah’s work has also focused on the concept of distributed leadership, and the development of research-based tools, practices, and teaching/coaching models that enable organizations to foster creative leadership at every level. This work was highlighted in a recent article in the Harvard Business Review, In Praise of the Incomplete Leader, February, 2007.In addition to X-Teams, Deborah’s studies of team performance have also been published in the Administrative Science Quarterly, the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, and the Sloan Management Review. Her previous book, Managing for the Future: Organizational Behavior and Processes (South-Western College Publishing, 1999, 2005) centers on the skills and processes needed in today’s diverse and changing organization.Deborah received her BA and MS in psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and her Ph.D. in management from Columbia University. She has served as a consultant on leadership and innovation to premier companies such as AT&T, BP,Credit Suisse First Boston, HP, Merrill Lynch, Newscorp, and Vale.
Rebecca Henderson is the John and Natty McArthur University Professor at Harvard University, where she has a joint appointment at the Harvard Business School in the General Management and Strategy units and is the Co-Director of the Business and Environment Initiative. Professor Henderson is also a research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Her work explores how organizations respond to large-scale technological shifts, most recently in regard to energy and the environment. She teaches Leadership and Corporate Accountability and the field study seminar Building Green Businesses in the MBA Program.From 1998 to 2009, Professor Henderson was the Eastman Kodak Professor of Management at the Sloan School of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she ran the strategy group and taught courses in strategy, technology strategy, and sustainability. She received an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering from MIT and a doctorate in business economics from Harvard.Professor Henderson sits on the boards of Amgen and of IDEXX Laboratories, and she has worked with both members of the Fortune 100 and small, technology-orientated start-ups. She was retained by the U.S. Department of Justice in connection with the remedies phase of the Microsoft trial, and in 2001 she was named Teacher of the Year at the Sloan School. Her work has been published in a range of scholarly journals including Administrative Science Quarterly, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Strategic Management Journal, Management Science, Research Policy, The RAND Journal of Economics, andOrganization Science.Her most recent publication is Accelerating Energy Innovation: Insights from Multiple Sectors, edited jointly with Richard Newell and published by the University of Chicago Press for National Bureau of Economic Research.
John StermanJay W. Forrester Professor in Computer ScienceProfessor of System Dynamics and Engineering Systems
Director, MIT System Dynamics GroupJohn D. Sterman is the Jay W. Forrester Professor in Computer Science, a Professor of System Dynamics and Engineering Systems,and the Director of the System Dynamics Group at the MIT Sloan School of Management.His research includes systems thinking and organizational learning, computer simulation of corporate strategy and public policy issues, and environmental sustainability. He is the author of many scholarly and popular articles on the challenges and opportunities facing organizations today, including the book, Modeling for Organizational Learning, and the award-winning textbook, Business Dynamics. Sterman’s research centers on improving decision-making in complex systems, including corporate strategy and operations, energy policy, public health, environmental sustainability, and climate change. He has pioneered the development of “management flight simulators” of corporate and economic systems, which are now used by corporations, universities, and governments around the world. His research ranges from the dynamics of organizational change and the implementation of sustainable improvement programs to climate change and the implementation of policies to promote a sustainable world.Sterman has twice been awarded the Jay W. Forrester Prize for the best published work in system dynamics, has won an IBM Faculty Award as well as the Accenture Award for the best paper of the year published in theCalifornia Management Review, has seven times won awards for teaching excellence, and was named one of MIT Sloan’s “Outstanding Faculty” by the BusinessWeek Guide to the Best Business Schools. He has been featured on Public Television’s News Hour, National Public Radio’s Marketplace, CBC television, Fortune, theFinancial Times, BusinessWeek, and other media for his research and innovative use of interactive simulations in management education and policymaking.Sterman holds an AB in engineering and environmental systems from Dartmouth College and a PhD in system dynamics from MIT.
The Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi is the Founding Director of The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his undergraduate degree (summa cum laude) and was also an Integral Honors Scholar (studying Philosophy and Physics), and has a graduate degree in Comparative Philosophy of Religion from Harvard University. He studied, trained and was ordained by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.He has been interviewed by the National Public Radio and articles on him and his work have appeared in the New York Times and the Boston Globe. He also speaks at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and various institutes of learning.Venerable Tenzin also serves on the Board of several academic, humanitarian, and religious organizations. He lectures internationally on subjects ranging from philosophy, science, ethics and religion to socio-political thought.
SALLIE W. (“Penny”) CHISHOLM is a biological oceanographer, and has been on the MIT Faculty since 1976. She is the Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies, and holds a joint appointment in the Departments of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Biology. Her research is focused on microbial ecology and evolution – in particular understanding the role of microbial life in marine ecosystems. For the past 25 years her group has been studying Prochlorococcus – the smallest and most abundant photosynthetic microbe in the oceans. She recently co-authored two children’s books about photosynthesis and the central role it plays in all Life on Earth.
Morton and Claire Goulder Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Department of Biological Engineering
Member, National Academy of Sciences
Education
Ph.D. Marine Biology 1986
Research Interests
Microbial life has been integral to the history and function of life on Earth for over 3.5 billion years. As such, microbes have evolved to be the fundamental engines that drive the cycles of energy and matter on Earth, past and present. Additionally, microbes represent the single largest source of evolutionary and biochemical diversity on the planet. Despite their significance, our understanding of the evolution and ecology, and the structure and function of natural microbial communities is limited both conceptually and technologically. Yet the potential of this vast reservoir of genetic and biochemical diversity is enormous, from the perspective of both basic knowledge creation, as well as that of synthetic applications. For these reasons, a major focus of our lab centers on devising and applying new approaches to describe, quantify and model the complexity of natural microbial assemblages, in particular bacteria and archaea, and understand its natural significance and applied potential.
Our lab is currently engaged in applying contemporary genomic technologies to dissect complex microbial assemblages. While biotic processes that occur within natural microbial communities are diverse and complex, much of this complexity is encoded in the nature, identity, structure, and dynamics of interacting genomes in situ. This genomic information can now be rapidly and generically extracted from the genomes of co-occurring microbes in natural habitats, using standard genomic technologies. We are now exploring and applying these and related technologies, to better describe and exploit the genetic, biochemical, and metabolic potential that is contained in the natural microbial world. Our central focus is on marine systems, due to the fundamental environmental significance of the oceans, as well their suitability for enabling development of new technologies, methods, and theory.
Teaching Interests
- Environmental genomics
- Microbial diversity
- Photobiology
- Integrating microbial systems biology with systems ecology
Selected Publications
- K.-U. Hinrichs, J. M. Hayes, S. P. Sylva, P. G. Brewer, and E. F. DeLong, 1999. Methane-consuming archaea Molecular-isotopic and phylogenetic evidence, Nature 398:802-805.
- Béjà, O., L. Aravind, E. V. Koonin, M. T. Suzuki, A. Hadd, L. P. Nguyen, S. B. Jovanovich, C. Gates, R. A. Feldman, J. L. Spudich, E. N. Spudich, and E. F. DeLong. 2000. Bacterial rhodopsin: evidence for a new type of phototrophy in the sea. Science 289: 1902-1906.
- DeLong, E. F. and N. R. Pace. 2001. Environmental Diversity of Bacteria & Archaea, Systematic Biol. 50:1-9.
- Béjà, O., E. N.. Spudich, J. L. Spudich, M. LeClerc, and E. F. DeLong. 2001. Proteorhodopsin phototrophy in the ocean. Nature 411:786-789.
- Karner, M, E. F. DeLong, and D. M. Karl. 2001. Archaeal dominance in the mesopelagic zone of the Pacific Ocean. Nature 409:507-510.
- de la Torre, J. R, Christianson, L.M., Béjà , O., Heidelberg, J., Karl D.M., and E. F. DeLong. 2003. Proteorhodopsin genes are distributed among divergent marine bacterial taxa.. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 100:12830-12835.
- Orphan, V. J., C. House, K. U. Hinrichs, K. McKeegan, and E.F. DeLong. 2001. Methane-consuming archaea revealed by directly coupled isotopic and phylogenetic analysis. Science 293:484 487.
- Béjà O., Suzuki, M. T., Heidelberg, J.F., Nelson, W.C., Preston, C.M., Hamada T., Eisen, J.A., Fraser, C., and E. F. DeLong. 2002. Unexpected diversity among marine aerobic anoxygenic phototrophs. Nature 415:630-633.
- Hallam, S. J., Putnam, N.. Preston, C.M., Detter, J.C., Richardson, P. M., Rokhsar, D., and E. F. DeLong. 2004. Reverse methanogenesis: testing the hypothesis with environmental genomics, Science, 305: 1457-1462.
- DeLong E. F. 2004. Microbial population genomics and ecology: a new frontier. In Microbial Genomics, ed. C.M. Fraser, K. E. Nelson, T.D. Read, Human Press Inc., Totowa, N.J., pp 419-442.
Dr. Kerry Emanuelis a professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has been on the faculty since 1981, after spending three years as a faculty member at UCLA. Professor Emanuel’s research interests focus on tropical meteorology and climate, with a specialty in hurricane physics. His interests also include cumulus convection, and advanced methods of sampling the atmosphere in aid of numerical weather prediction. He is the author or co-author of over 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers, and two books, including Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes, recently released by Oxford University Press and aimed at a general audience, and What We Know about Climate Change, published by the MIT Press.He was named one of the Time 100 influential people of 2006.[1] In 2007, he was elected as a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.[2]
Jonathan Foley is the director of the Institute on the Environment (IonE) at the University of the Minnesota, where he is a professor and McKnight Presidential Chair in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior. He also leads the IonE’s Global Landscapes Initiative.Foley’s work focuses on the sustainability of our civilization and the global environment. He and his students have contributed to our understanding of global food security, global patterns of land use, the behavior of the planet’s climate, ecosystems and water cycle, and the sustainability of the biosphere. This work has led him to be a regular advisor to large corporations, NGOs and governments around the world.Foley joined the University of Minnesota in 2008, after spending 15 years on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin, where he founded the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment. He and his colleagues have published numerous articles in the scientific literature, including highly cited work in Science, Nature and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He has also written many popular articles and essays, including pieces in the New York Times, Scientific American, SEED, E360, the Guardian, Momentum, and elsewhere. His public presentations on global issues have been featured at hundreds of venues, including the Aspen Environmental Forum, the Quatauqua Institution, and TED.Foley has won numerous awards and honors, including the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development Award; the J.S. McDonnell Foundation’s 21st Century Science Award; an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellowship; and the Sustainability Science Award from the Ecological Society of America. In 1997, President Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.Although originally from Maine, Foley now considers the Upper Midwest his home. He enjoys a wide range of activities, including kayaking, bicycling, gardening and exploring new places—often with his two young daughters leading the
Fr. Thomas Keating, O.C.S.O.(born 1923) is a Trappist monk (Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance) and priest. He was born in New York City, and attended Deerfield Academy, Yale University, and Fordham University, graduating in December 1943. He is a founder of the Centering Prayer movement and of Contemplative Outreach, Ltd.Keating entered the Cistercian Order in Valley Falls, Rhode Island in January, 1944. He was appointed Superior of St. Benedict’s Monastery, Snowmass, Colorado in 1958, and was elected abbot of St. Joseph’s Abbey, Spencer, Massachusetts in 1961. He returned to Snowmass after retiring as abbot of Spencer in 1981, where he established a program of ten-day intensive retreats in the practice of Centering Prayer, a contemporary form of the Christian contemplative tradition.
He is one of three architects of Centering Prayer, a contemporary method of contemplative prayer, that emerged from St. Joseph’s Abbey in 1975. Frs. William Menninger and Basil Pennington, also Cistercian monks, were the other architects. In 1984, along with Gustave Reininger and Edward Bednar, he co-founded Contemplative Outreach, Ltd., an international, ecumenical spiritual network that teaches the practice of Centering Prayer and Lectio Divina, a method of prayer drawn from the Christian contemplative tradition. Contemplative Outreach provides a support system for those on the contemplative path through a wide variety of resources, workshops, and retreats. Fr. Keating also helped found the Snowmass Interreligious Conference in 1982 and is a past president of the Temple of Understanding and of the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue among other interreligious activities.
Fr. Keating is author of several books and lives at St. Benedict’s Monastery in Snowmass, Colorado.
Dr. James Orbinski is Research Chair of Global Health at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, and professor of Family and Community Medicine, and of political science at the University of Toronto. As international president of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) from 1998 to 2001, he launched its Access to Essential Medicines Campaign and accepted the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to MSF. He led MSF’s mission in Kigali, Rwanda during the 1994 genocide, and in 1996 in Zaire. He served as MSF’s medical co-coordinator in Afghanistan in 1993 and in Somalia in 1992-93. He co-chaired MSF’s Neglected Diseases Working Group, which in 2004 launched the not-for profit Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi). Since, the DNDI has developed and released 6 new treatments and has 17 others in its pipeline, all for diseases that are not targeted by the pharmaceutical industry because these are not profitable. He is co-founder of Dignitas International, which has over 20,000 people on full treatment for HIV and is scaling up its Primary Health Care treatment model to serve a population of 3 million in Malawi. Dr. Orbinski has served on the founding boards of the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, the Stephen Lewis Foundation and Canadian Doctors for Medicare. He is a founding member of the editorial boards of Open Medicine and Conflict and Health. Orbinski is a member of the Climate Change and Health Council and the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Health Care Systems and Cooperation. Some of his formal research is recognized as among the “best science in the world” (in 2006), and as having “shaped scholarship in the field of global health in the post Second World War years”.¹ He is also the author of the award-winning and best-selling book, An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarianism in the 21st Century (Bloomsbury, 2009). The book has since been translated into five languages. He was the subject of the award winning 2008 documentary film, Triage: Dr. James Orbinski’s Humanitarian Dilemma. He is a member of the Order of Ontario and an officer of the Order of Canada. In 2011 he is the recipient of the Walter S. Tarnopolsky Human Rights Award (given by the Canadian Superior Court Judges Association, the International Commission of Jurists {Canada}, the Canadian Bar Association, and the Canadian Association of Law Teachers), recognizing his outstanding contributions to domestic and international human rights. He is also recipient of the 2012 Canadian Civil Liberties Award of Excellence.Sample Publications:Orbinski, James. Foreword. Ethics and Global health. An Introduction to Global Health Ethics. Edited by Ross E.G. Upshur and Andrew D. Pinto. Publisher: Routledge, 2012.Orbinski J, Harland-Logan S, N-Marandi S. Are Patents Impeding Medical Care and Innovation? PLoS Med; 2010 Jan; 7(1).Kirton J, Orbinski J, Guebert J. The Case for a Global Health Strategy forCanada. Global Health Diplomacy Program, UniversityofToronto. Prepared for the Strategic Policy Branch in the International Affairs Directorate of HealthCanada. March 30, 2010.Murray, C., Baeza, C.,Bali, V., Bloom, D., Boufford, J., Bradley, E., Cassels, A., Dzau, V., Elias, C., Frenk, J., Halvorson, G., Kondo, J., Lob-Levyt, J., Mills, A., Osmaswa, F. Orbinski, J., Smith, P. Global Healthcare Systems and Cooperation. Global Health Council Report. Global Agenda Council Reports 2010. DAVOS World Economic Forum. Global Agenda, 2010. See:http://www.weforum.org/en/Communities/GlobalAgendaCouncils/index.htmOrbinski, J. and Jenilee Guebert. “Climate Change and Global Health: The Time is Now.” Chapter in G8 and G20 The 2010 Canadian Summits: Recovery & New Beginnings.Newsdesk Communications Ltd;London. June 2010.Orbinski, James, A Doctor inKigali. Lapham’s Quartlerly on Medicine. September 30, 2009. See: http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/Mills Edward J, Francesco Checchi, James J Orbinski, Michael J Schull, Frederick M Burkle Jr, Chris Beyrer, Curtis Cooper, Colleen Hardy, Sonal Singh, Richard Garfield, Bradley A Woodruff, Gordon H Guyatt. “Users’ guides to the medical literature: how to use an article about mortality in a humanitarian emergency.” Conflict and Health2 (9). 30 September 2008.Orbinski, J., Beyrer, C, Singh, S. “Violations of human rights: health practitioners as witnesses.” The Lancet370 (9588): 698-704. August 2007.Mills Edward J., Jean B. Nachega, Iain Buchan, James Orbinski, Amir Attaran, Sonal Singh, Beth Rachlis,Ping Wu, Curtis Cooper, Lehana Thabane, Kumanan Wilson,Gordon H. Guyatt, MD, David R. Bangsberg. “Adherence to Antiretroviral Therapy in Sub-Saharan Africa andNorth America: A Meta-analysis.” JAMA 296: 679-690. 2006.Dolma S, Singh S, Lohfeld L, Orbinski JJ, Mills EJ. Dangerous journey: Documenting the experience of Tibetan Refugees. Am J Public Health. 2006 Nov;96(11):2061-4.¹ John Kirton. Global Health. The Library of Essays in Global Governance. Editor’s Preface. Ashgate Publishing Limited. 2009. Pg, xii. [Peer Reviewed]. Referring to: Troullier, P., Olliaro, P., Torreele, E., Orbinski, J., Laing, R., Ford, N. “Drug development for neglected diseases: a deficient market and a public health policy failure.”” The Lancet 359: 2188–2194. 2002.
Brother David Steindl-Rast, O.S.B.was born in 1926 in Vienna, Austria. He studied art, anthropology, and psychology, receiving a Ph.D. from the University of Vienna. Since 1953 he has been a monk of Mount Saviour Benedictine monastery in New York. He was one of the first Roman Catholics to participate in Buddhist-Christian dialogue.For decades, Brother David has divided his time between periods of a hermit’s life and extensive lecture tours. His audiences included starving students in Zaire and faculty at Harvard and Columbia, Buddhist monks and Sufi retreatants, New Age commune residents and naval cadets, Green Berets and international peace conference participants.He has contributed to books and periodicals from the Encyclopedia Americana to the New Age Journal. He authored Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer and A Listening Heart, both reprinted and anthologized for more than two decades. Brother David co-authored Belonging to the Universe, with physicist, Fritjof Capra, and The Ground We Share on Buddhist and Christian practice with Robert Aitken Roshi. His most recent book is Deeper Than Words: Living the Apostles’ Creed.Brother David co-founded www.gratefulness.org, a website supporting ANG*L (A Network for Grateful Living). It reaches more than 8,000 visitors daily, from over 200 countries.
Zeynep Ton is an Adjunct Associate Professor of Operations Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Ton is currently examining how organizations can design and manage their operations in a way that satisfies employees, customers, and investors simultaneously. Her earlier research focused on the critical role of store operations in retail supply chains. Ton identified operational problems at stores that reduce retail supply chain performance as well as store profits and traced these problems to the design of store processes and the management of store labor.
Her work has been published in a variety of journals, including Organization Science, Production and Operations Management, and the Harvard Business Review. In addition, she has written numerous cases that explore different approaches to managing retail stores and labor. Prior to MIT Sloan, Ton spent seven years as an assistant professor in the Technology and Operations Management area at Harvard Business School, where she was awarded the HBS Faculty Teaching Award for teaching excellence.
Ton holds a DBA from Harvard Business School and a BS in Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering from Pennsylvania State University.
Thomas W. Malone is the Patrick J. McGovern Professor of Management at the MIT SloanSchool of Management and the founding director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence.He was also the founder and director of the MIT Center for Coordination Science and one ofthe two founding co-directors of the MIT Initiative on “Inventing the Organizations of the 21stCentury.” Professor Malone teaches classes on organizational design, information technology, and leadership, and his research focuses on how new organizations can be designed to take advantage of the possibilities provided by information technology.The past two decades of his research are summarized in his critically acclaimed book, The Future of Work: How the New Order of Business Will Shape Your Organization, Your Management Style, and Your Life (Harvard Business School Press, 2004). Professor Malone has also published over 100 articles, research papers, and book chapters; he is an inventor with 11 patents; and he is the co-editor of three books: Coordination Theory and Collaboration Technology (Erlbaum, 2001), Inventing the Organizations of the 21st Century (MIT Press, 2003), and Organizing Business Knowledge: The MIT Process Handbook (MIT Press, 2003).Malone has been a cofounder of three software companies and has consulted and served as a board member for a number of other organizations. In 2012, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Zurich. His background also includes work as a research scientist at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), a Ph.D. from Stanford University, and degrees in applied mathematics, engineering, and psychology.
James Taylor’s music embodies the art of songwriting in its most personal and universal forms. He is a master at describing specific, even autobiographical situations in a way that resonates with people everywhere. In 1971, Taylor was on the cover of Time magazine, heralded as the harbinger of the singer-songwriter era. Four decades later his warm baritone, introspective lyrics and unique guitar playing still blaze a path to which young musicians aspire. He has sold more than 50 million albums throughout his career and has earned 40 gold, platinum, and multi-platinum awards and five GRAMMY Awards. His songs have had a profound influence on songwriters and music lovers from all walks of life: “Fire and Rain,” “Country Road,” “Something in the Way She Moves,” “Mexico,” “Shower the People,” “Your Smiling Face,” “Carolina In My Mind,” “Sweet Baby James,” “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight,” “You Can Close Your Eyes,” “Walking Man,” “Never Die Young,” “Shed a Little Light,” “Copperline,” “Enough to be On Your Way,” “Caroline I See You,” and many more.In a career marked by artistic triumphs, the past two years for Taylor have been notable for both creative virtuosity and recognition of exceptional achievement. In 2012, he was awarded the distinguished Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government and in 2011, was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama. Both medals are their nation’s highest honors for artistic excellence recognizing “outstanding achievements and support of the arts.” In 2011, Taylor was also honored with a Carnegie Hall Perspectives series, which consisted of four concert evenings presented by Carnegie Hall and featuring Taylor and personally selected musical guests.
Raised in North Carolina, Taylor lives in Massachusetts with his wife, Caroline, and their twins, Henry and Rufus.
John R. Cogan, Jr., and Mary L. Cornille Chair, endowed in perpetuityCellist Owen Young joined the BSO in August 1991. A frequent collaborator in chamber music concerts and festivals, he has also appeared as concerto soloist with numerous orchestras. He has appeared in the Tanglewood, Aspen, Banff, Davos, Sunflower, Gateway, Brevard, and St. Barth’s music festivals and is a founding member of the innovative chamber ensemble Innuendo. Mr. Young’s performances have been broadcast on National Public Radio, WQED in Pittsburgh, WITF in Harrisburg, and WGBH in Boston. He has performed frequently with singer/songwriter James Taylor, including the nationally televised concert “James Taylor Live at the Beacon Theatre” in New York City. Mr. Young was formerly on the faculties of the Boston Conservatory, the New England Conservatory Extension Division, and the Longy School of Music; is currently on the faculty of Berklee College of Music; and is active in Project STEP (String Training and Education Program for students of color). From 1991 to 1996 he was a Harvard-appointed resident tutor and director of concerts in Dunster House at Harvard University. His teachers included Eleanor Osborn, Michael Grebanier, Anne Martindale Williams, and Aldo Parisot. Mr. Young holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Yale University. He was a Tanglewood Music Center Fellow in 1986 and 1987. After winning an Orchestra Fellowship in 1987, he played with the Atlanta Symphony in 1988 and with the Boston Symphony in 1988-89. He was a member of the New Haven Symphony in 1986-87 and of the Pittsburgh Symphony from 1989 until he joined the BSO in 1991.
he vocal ensemble Blue Heron, directed by Scott Metcalfe, has been acclaimed by The Boston Globe as “one of the Boston music community’s indispensables” and hailed by Alex Ross in The New Yorker for the “expressive intensity” of its interpretations. Combining a commitment to vivid live performance with the study of original source materials and historical performance practices, Blue Heron ranges over a wide and fascinating repertoire, including 15th-century English and Franco-Flemish polyphony, Spanish music between 1500 and 1600, and neglected early 16th-century English music, especially the rich repertory of the Peterhouse partbooks, copied c. 1540 for Canterbury Cathedral. Blue Heron’s first CD, featuring music by Guillaume Du Fay, was released in 2007. In 2010 the ensemble inaugurated a 5-CD series of Music from the Peterhouse Partbooks; two discs have been released so far, of music by Hugh Aston, Robert Jones, Nicholas Ludford, John Mason, and Richard Pygott. All three of Blue Heron’s recordings have received international critical acclaim and the first Peterhouse CD made the Billboard charts.Blue Heron presents subscription series in Boston and in New York City. The ensemble has appeared at the Boston Early Music Festival; in New York City at The Cloisters, the 92nd Street Y, and Music Before 1800; at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., at Festival Mozaic in San Luis Obispo, California, and at the Berkeley Early Music Festival. Blue Heron is ensemble in residence at the new Center for Early Music Studies at Boston University.
BORN OF THAI-CHINESE ETHNICITY, Adrian Anantawan began the violin at nine, and has since established himself as “a rising star in classical music” (Globe and Mail). In 2001, he was accepted into the Curtis Institute of Music with a merit-based full scholarship, and completed his bachelor degree under the tutelage of Ida Kavafian. In past summers, he has also studied with Pinchas Zukerman and Itzhak Perlman. Adrian also holds graduate degrees from Yale and Harvard Universities, and is a winner of the Rosemary Kennedy International Competition. He currently serves as the conductor of the Dudamel Orchestra at the Conservatory Lab Charter School in Boston, MA.
Liz walker is a television journalist, a documentary film producer and a humanitarian currently working in the war-torn country of South Sudan. For 20 years she was on air at WBZ Television as Boston’s first African American to anchor a major television newscast. Liz has most currently hosts a special television magazine series called BETTER LIVING WITH LIZ WALKER on Boston’s WCVB Television.In the summer of 2001, Liz traveled to war-torn Sudan on a fact-finding mission on the controversial slave trade in southern Sudan. She was so outraged by the human rights atrocities in Sudan she co-founded My Sister’s Keeper, a grass roots initiative that advocates for women and children who are trying to rebuild their country and their lives. Liz returns to Sudan often, including the region of Darfur, the scene of the 21st century’s first genocide. My Sister’s Keeper has most recently completed the construction of a Girls’ School for more than 500 girls in South Sudan.She is the recipient of two Emmys, an Edward R. Murrow Award and special recognition from the prestigious Gabriel Awards for her on-air and documentary work.
M. Sanjayan is the Lead Scientist for The Nature Conservancy and a faculty researcher at the University of Montana. His interests are in exploring the nexus between conservation and poverty or human well being.His scientific work has been published in journals including Science, Nature, Conservation Biology, and Marine Policy. He is a Catto Fellow at the Aspen Institute, and a senior advisor to the Clinton Global Initiative.Sanjayan’s efforts have received extensive media coverage from National Geographic Adventure, and the New York Times to Vanity Fair. In August 2010 Outside magazine published a feature profile on him. He is a frequent guest on NBC’s Today Show, the Letterman Show on CBS and other venues. He has been featured in numerous documentaries (Discovery Channel, BBC, National Geographic, Animal Planet International) including Powering the Future, a series on energy he hosted and narrated for the Discovery Channel in 2010. He is currently working on a multi-part series for PBS & National Geographic Television to air in 2014. Sanjayan is a sought after speaker with stage appearances at TED Global, Aspen Ideas Festival, Clinton Global Initiative, and the International Women’s Forum amongst others. In 2012 he was named as the science and environment contributor for CBS News.When not exploring our planet, Sanjayan can be found fly-fishing the rivers of Western Montana, where he tries to live.ASK HIS HOLINESS
To ask a question of His Holiness or other speakers on the panel, please visit our facebook page and leave a comment, or comment directly with the form below.
If you see existing questions/comments that you think should be asked, please vote for them by ‘liking’ them.
SCHEDULE/TICKETS
Our series of events will begin on October 11, 2012. Some of the events are free and open to public. Please check for more details under Auxiliary events.
Beyond Religion: Ethics, Values, & Wellbeing
A Talk by His Holiness the Dalai Lama
October 14, 2012 at 1:30PM- 3:30PM
Venue: Grand Ballroom, Marriott Copley Boston
(It is recommended that you arrive early to allow yourself ample of time for security. Please be seated in the auditorium by 1PM)
Response by Fr. Thomas Keating and Br. David Steindl-Rast
(Tickets for October 14th are no longer available. This event is FULL)
——-
GLOBAL SYSTEMS 2.0
Panel I: Ethics, Economics, & Environment
Panel II: Peace, Governance, & Diminishing Resources
October 15, 2012 (9:30AM-11:30AM and 1:30PM-3:30PM)
Venue: Kresge Auditorium, MIT
(It is recommended that you arrive early to allow yourself ample of time for security. Please be seated in the auditorium by 9AM for the morning session and 1PM for the afternoon session.)
(Tickets for October 15th are no longer available. This event is FULL)
——-
Stages of Meditation: Buddhism for the 21st Century
A Teaching by His Holiness the Dalai Lama
(Note: This event is organized by Prajnopaya at MIT)
October 16, 2012 at 9:30AM- 11:30AM
Venue: Kresge Auditorium, MIT
(It is recommended that you arrive early to allow yourself ample of time for security. Please be seated in the auditorium by 9AM)
(Tickets for October 16th are no longer available. This event is FULL)
For more details and ticket information visit http://prajnopaya.org
Please be Mindful:
-Tickets are non-refundable and non-transferable.
-You will need a physical ticket to gain admission to each event. E-tickets or print outs will not be accepted.
-Be sure to bring your ticket(s) and a Photo ID.
-No recording devices of any kind will be permitted. Your phone/ smartphone should be turned off before security and should remain off during the duration of the event.
-Please arrive early. Allow yourself ample of time to go through security.
-Refrain from bringing large bags and bagpacks. They will not be permitted.
REGISTRATION/ LOTTERY FOR MIT STUDENTS
Enrolled MIT students will qualify for limited number of complimentary tickets to the events. Students will be selected through a lottery which will open on September 15, 2012. Students who have won will be informed on October 5, 2012. You will need to confirm by October 7th of your participation otherwise the ticket will be passed on to other students on the wait list. You will need to present a valid MIT Student ID to pick up your ticket and to enter the venue. To be able to accommodate as many students as possible, each student will be allocated ticket to one event only.
Please print the confirmation email for your records.
Lottery is now closed.
Please be Mindful:
Sign up to receive emails and like our facebook page to stay updated.
-Tickets are non-transferable.
–You will need a physical ticket to gain admission to each event. E-tickets or print outs will not be accepted.
-Be sure to bring your ticket(s) and a Photo ID.
-No recording devices of any kind will be permitted.
-Please plan to arrive early. Give yourself ample of time for security check.
-Refrain from bringing large bags as it delays the security screening process.
SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
THINK. GIVE. TRANSFORM. IMPACT.
We invite you to join the ranks of respected world leaders and pioneers in science, technology, ethics, governance and environmental studies who are already on board advancing The Center’s work.
Support the continued development and expansion of our programming. Ensure a responsible future.
To date, 100% of funds raised go directly to The Center’s programs.
WAYS TO CONTRIBUTE:
Friends of The Center
Contribute with a significant gift of unrestricted support or contribute to a program of your choice. Your contribution impacts every aspect of Center activities from Compassionate Young Leaders, to Transformative Leadership, to Fellows’ programs. Your role as a Friend of The Center includes special benefits.
October 2012 Event Sponsor
Make your mark by contributing to the momentous visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama this October. Special benefits come with October 2012 Event Sponsorships.
Corporate Sponsor
Invest in our community and in the shaping of innovative global leaders by making a contribution to The Center. A contribution from your corporation or business includes special benefits plus The Center’s own Executive Ethics Training Program tailored for your corporation or business.
Contributions of any amount are appreciated. Click the following link to give online today: MIT Giving Site (Account # 2739965). Thank you.
Please contact us at 617-324-6030 or info@thecenter.mit.edu to discuss your benefits and how your contribution will make a difference.
All contributions to The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at MIT are tax deductible as permitted by law under IRS section 501 (c)(3).
PRESS/ MEDIA INQUIRY
Members of the press will need special passes to access the events.
If you are an accredited member of the press, please contact Kimberly Allen, MIT News Office, allenkc@mit.edu, 617.253.2702. You will be informed once your request and credentials have been reviewed.
We may be unable to accommodate any last minute requests. Thank You for your understanding.
A Conversation with Pir Zia Inayat-Khan
Friday, November 30, 2012 at 7PM
Venue: Building 32, Room 123
open to general public
Pir Zia Inayat-Khan is a scholar and teacher of Sufism in the lineage of his grandfather, Hazrat Inayat Khan. He received his B.A. (Hons) in Persian Literature from the London School of Oriental and African Studies, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Religion from Duke University. Pir Zia is founder of Seven Pillars House of Wisdom, an interspiritual, interdisciplinary fellowship dedicated to the unfolding of wisdom in our time, and also of Sulūk Academy, a school of contemplative study with branches in the U.S. and Europe. His forthcoming publication, Saracen Chivalry: Counsels on Valor, Generosity and the Mystical Quest, will be published by Suluk Press, an imprint of Omega Publications, and is due November, 2012.
Whereas religious systems differ markedly in their theological views and ritual practices, the world’s religions and enlightened philosophical traditions find themselves in perfect accord on the essential importance of ethical integrity. At a time when the Islamic world and the West seem locked in an interminable symbolic conflict fraught with global peril, the ethical values that unite Islam and the West are a timely topic for exploration and celebration.
The WiSDM Symposium, sponsored by the MIT Women in System Design and Management (WiSDM), will be held on Tuesday October 23, 2012, as the afternoon session of the 2012 MIT SDM Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges.
WiSDM has invited accomplished female leaders across the industries of food and health, consumer products, and defense to discuss the application of systems thinking and systems engineering in their respective organizations.
AGENDA
11:45–12:30 pm: Lunch, MIT Faculty Club
12:30–1:15 pm: Luncheon Speaker
Zoe Finch Totten, Founder and CEO, The Full Yield; Ashoka Fellow
Reinstating Food in Healthcare Systems Design
1:15–1:45 pm: Break
1:45–2:30 pm: Heidi Grenek, Western Hemisphere Post Sale Supply Chain New Product Launch Manager, Xerox Corporation
Business Transformation and Optimization through System Dynamics and Systems Thinking
2:30–3:15 pm: Dr. Ellen Ferraro, Director of Systems Architecture, Design & Integration Directorate, Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems
The Art and Science of Systems Thinking and Systems Engineering
3:15–3:30 pm: Tina Srivastava, Deputy Technical Director, Electronic Warfare, Raytheon; SDM Fellow 2011
Key Themes—Creating Value through Systems Engineering
3:30–3:45 pm: Joan Rubin
Wrap-up
3:45–5:00 pm: Networking Reception Hosted by WiSDM
Co-sponsor(s):
Across industries and government organizations around the globe, a systems-based approach is increasingly seen as critical to addressing the urgent and complex problems we face today. For many organizations, the question is not whether to employ systems thinking, but how to apply it to maintain competitive advantage.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s annual Conference on Systems Thinking for Contemporary Challenges, sponsored by the System Design and Management Program, will focus on addressing complexity and innovation in energy and managing complex data across industries. MIT has carefully chosen speakers not only for their expertise in addressing complex systems challenges, but also for their role in leading the implementation of the day-to-day tasks that produce results.
MIT professors will frame the three-fold nature of systems thinking—technical, managerial, and socio-political—and outline how it is being applied in these critical areas. Industry leaders will describe best practices that demonstrate the challenges they face within and outside of their organizations, how they apply a systems-based approach, the benefits achieved, and the lessons learned.
The aim of the conference is to provide practical information from multiple disciplines that will spark ideas for how to implement systems thinking and innovation to address complex challenges, whether in industry, academia, government, or the world at large.
Co-sponsor(s):
Tenzin Gyatso, the XIVth Dalai Lama, is a moral figure and spiritual leader revered worldwide. He was born to a farming family on July 6, 1935 in a small village called Taktser in northeastern Tibet. He was recognized, in accordance with Tibetan tradition, at the age of two as the reincarnation of his predecessor, the XIIIth Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lamas are believed to be Embodiments of Compassion, who choose to reincarnate for the purpose of serving humanity. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1989, he is universally respected as a spokesman for the compassionate and peaceful resolution of human conflict. Most recently he was awarded the United States Congressional Gold Medal in 2007 in recognition for his “many enduring and outstanding contributions to peace, non-violence, human rights and religious understanding.” He has traveled extensively, speaking on subjects including universal responsibility, love, compassion and kindness.His Holiness is committed to the promotion of the human values of compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, contentment and self-discipline – what he calls secular ethics – and also promotes religious harmony and understanding among the world’s major religious traditions.
For decades, Brother David has divided his time between periods of a hermit’s life and extensive lecture tours. His audiences included starving students in Zaire and faculty at Harvard and Columbia, Buddhist monks and Sufi retreatants, New Age commune residents and naval cadets, Green Berets and international peace conference participants.
He has contributed to books and periodicals from the Encyclopedia Americana to the New Age Journal. He authored Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer and A Listening Heart, both reprinted and anthologized for more than two decades. Brother David co-authored Belonging to the Universe, with physicist, Fritjof Capra, and The Ground We Share on Buddhist and Christian practice with Robert Aitken Roshi. His most recent book is Deeper Than Words: Living the Apostles’ Creed.
Brother David co-founded www.gratefulness.org, a website supporting ANG*L (A Network for Grateful Living). It reaches more than 8,000 visitors daily, from over 200 countries.
Meng is Google’s Jolly Good Fellow (which nobody can deny). Like many things in Google, his unusual job title started as a joke, but eventually became real. Meng was one of Google’s earliest engineers. Among many other things, he helped build Google’s first mobile search service, and headed the team that kept a vigilant eye on Google’s search quality. After a successful 8-year stint in Engineering and 2 years as GoogleEDU’s Head of Personal Growth, he now serves with Google’s Talent Team. His current job description is, “Enlighten minds, open hearts, create world peace”.
One of Meng’s main projects at Google is a groundbreaking mindfulness-based emotional intelligence course called Search Inside Yourself, which was featured on the front page of the Sunday Business section of the New York Times. Search Inside Yourself is also the title of Meng’s New York Times bestselling book which has been endorsed by world leaders such as President Carter of the United States and President Nathan of Singapore, business leaders such as Eric Schmidt of Google and John Mackey of Whole Foods Markets, and spiritual leaders such as the Dalai Lama and Deepak Chopra. Meng hopes Search Inside Yourself will eventually contribute to world peace in a meaningful way.
Outside of Google, Meng is the Founder and (Jolly Good) President of the Tan Teo Charitable Foundation, a small foundation dedicated to promoting Peace, Liberty and Enlightenment in the world. He is a Founder and the Chairman of the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (SIYLI). He is a Founding Patron of Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARE). He is also a Founding Patron of the World Peace Festival, and adviser to a number of technology start-ups.
Meng earned his MS in Computer Science from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He went to Santa Barbara mainly for the beach, but didn’t mind the graduate degree either. He has won many computing-related awards, including the Championship of Singapore’s National Software Competition. Prior to coming to the United States, Meng had a successful engineering career in Singapore. (He knew it was successful because nobody offered to fire him).
![toyama[1]](http://thecenter.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/toyama1-150x150.jpg)
![bhardwaj[1]](http://thecenter.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/bhardwaj1-150x150.jpg)
tuberculosis (TB) get care that matches the best in the world. As of early 2012, IIH provided access to care to a catchment of 85,000 residents in rural Bihar, India.
Prior to IIH, Manish was a co-founder and Vice President at Engim Inc., a private venture backed wireless semiconductor startup. Manish has won several awards including the IBM Research Fellowship, the MIT Graduate Student Council teaching award, and the Compaq Gold Medal. He has Ph.D. and S.M. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Bachelor of Applied Science from the Nanyang Technological University,
Singapore. A native of India, he has lived in Singapore, Indonesia, Austria and the U.S.
Director, Institute on the Environment (IonE), University of Minnesota
Board of Advisors, The Dalai Lama Center for Ethics at MIT
![shirin_ebadi[1]](http://thecenter.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/shirin_ebadi1-150x113.jpg)
In 1975, she was the first Iranian woman to preside over a legislative court. Following Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979, Ebadi was demoted to the position of a clerk in the court she had presided over because the revolution deemed women unfit to serve as judges. Unable to accept the discrimination against her, she resigned, and although her application was repeatedly rejected, finally obtained a license to open a law firm. For the next two decades, Ebadi devoted her life to the promotion of women’s rights, the defense of children, and political activists. Her organization, the Association for Human Rights Advocates, provides pro bono legal service to political prisoners in Iran. Shirin Ebadi has spoken out strongly against discrimination and injustice in her country, at times despite great risk to her own safety.
In 2000, she spent a month in solitary confinement as a result of defending the family of a student killed by the police in protests in Tehran. Shirin Ebadi’s principal arena is the struggle for basic human rights and the fundamental value that political power in a community must be built on democratic elections. She favors dialogue as the best path to changing attitudes and resolving conflict, and as a conscious Muslim believes there is no conflict between Islam and fundamental human rights.
Dr. Ebadi is the founder of three NGOs in Iran, The Association for the Defense of the Rights of the Child, The Association for Human Rights Advocates, and the Organization against Mines in Iran. She is the author of 14 books, including available in English a memoir Iran Awakening; Refugee Law in Iran; and, The Golden Cage.
George Barbastathis, Ian HutchinsonModerated by Dr. Ian Hutchinson
![picard[1]](http://thecenter.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/picard1.jpg)
Founder and Director of the Affective Computing Research Group, MIT Media Laboratory
Rosalind W. Picard is founder and director of the Affective Computing Research Group at the MIT Media Laboratory and co-director of the Things That Think Consortium, the largest industrial sponsorship organization at the lab. The author of over a hundred peer-reviewed scientific articles in multidimensional signal modeling, computer vision, pattern recognition, machine learning, and human-computer interaction, Picard is known internationally for pioneering research in affective computing and, prior to that, research in content-based image and video retrieval. She is a graduate with honors from the Georgia Institute of Technology and holds Masters and Doctorate degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT.
![barbasthasis[1]](http://thecenter.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/barbasthasis1.jpg)
Singapore Research Professor of Optics and Professor of Mechanical Engineering, MIT
Dr. George Barbastathis is Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT and Faculty Resident with the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART) Centre. He received the Diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens in 1993, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Caltech in 1994 and ’97, respectively. Between 1997-99 he was a Post-doctoral Research Associate with the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Between 2006-2007 he was Visiting Scholar with the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Harvard University. He has been the recipient of the Nikolaos Kritikos award in Mathematics, the 3M Innovation Award, the NSF Young Investigator Award, and the Esther & Harold E. Edgerton junior chair at MIT. He and his team at the SMART center developed an “invisibility cloak†using a very simple and inexpensive system. This method of using Science to hide objects in plain sight was voted in the top 10 breakthroughs in Physics in 2010.
![gomez-marquez[1]](http://thecenter.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/gomez-marquez1.jpg)
Program Director, Innovations in International Health Initiative, MIT
Jose Gomez-Marquez is the program director for the Innovations in International Health initiative at MIT. He leads a team of multidisciplinary team of scientists to design medical devices for developing countries. He is co-inventor of the Aerovax Drug Delivery System, a device for mass delivery of inhalable drugs and vaccines to remote populations and the X out TB program, which aims to increase TB therapy adherence in developing countries using novel diagnostics and mobile technology. Recently, the group has developed the MEDIKit, a series of design building blocks that empower doctors and nurses in developing countries to invent their medical technologies.
Jose serves on the European Union’s Science Against Poverty Taskforce and has participated as an expert advisor in the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. He is an instructor of MIT’s D-Lab: Health, a course on designing global health technologies at MIT. Jose is a 3 time MIT IDEAS Competition winner, including two Lemelson Awards for International Technology. In 2009, Jose was selected to Technology Review’s T35, which also named him Humanitarian of the Year. In 2011 he was named a TED Fellow. Born and raised in Honduras he currently lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
![sibley[1]](http://thecenter.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/sibley1.jpg)
Leon and Anne Goldberg Professor of Humanities, and Professor of Sociology and Anthropology, MIT
Professor Silbey is Leon and Anne Goldberg Professor of Humanities, and Professor of Sociology and Anthropology. Professor Silbey is the recipient of numerous prizes and awards including John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowships (2009), the Harry Kalven Jr. Prize for advancing the sociology of law (2009), Doctor Honoris Causa from Ecole Normale Superiere Cachan, in Paris (2006). She is also Past President of the Law & Society Association, and a fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.
Silbey received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago and post-graduate training in ethnography in the Sociology Department of Brandeis University. She has written about the social organization of law in diverse institutional and informal settings including attorney general’s offices, courts, schools, private homes, businesses and scientific laboratories; she has also studied alternative forms of dispute resolution including negotiation and mediation. She has edited Studies in Law, Politics and Society (1990-1997) and the Law & Society Review (1998-2000). In 1998, she published The Common Place of Law: Stories from Everyday Life (with Patricia Ewick) describing the ways in which Americans imagine, use, and construct the rule of law, in 2003, In Litigation: Do the ‘Haves’ Still Come Out Ahead? (edited with Herbert Kritzer), and in 2008 Law and Science I, Epistemological, Evidentiary, and Relational Engagements, and Law and Science II, Regulation of Property, Practices, and Products.
Silbey’s current research looks at the roles and conceptions of law in scientific laboratories, comparing the place of law in expert communities and popular culture, with special attention to the ways in which complex technological organizations observe and govern themselves. She is supervising an experiment in ethnographic fieldwork on the development of new safety regimes in research labs. In addition, she is completing a six year longitudinal study of engineering education, following a cohort of students through four different engineering schools.
Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization, 1934. (Columbia)
“Why does this magnificent applied science which saves work and makes life easier bring us so little happiness? The simple answer runs: Because we have not yet learned to make sensible use of it.”
Albert Einstein, in an address at Caltech, 1931. (Harper)
“Technology shapes society and society shapes technology.”
Robert S. White, Environmental Science and Technology, 1990. (S&S)
![toyama[3]](http://thecenter.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/toyama3-150x150.jpg)
How do you design user interfaces for an illiterate migrant worker?
What value is video technology to a farmer earning $1 a day?
Interventionist projects in “information and communication technology for development” (ICT4D) seek to answer these kinds of questions, but the excitement has also generated excessive hype about the power of technology to solve the deep problems of poverty. In this talk, I will present several persistent myths of ICT4D, offer a theory of “technology as amplifier” which explains the gap between rhetoric and reality, and provide recommendations for engineers and scientists interested in contributing to a better world. My hope is to suggest that while technology might not save the world, technologists have much to contribute.
Kentaro Toyama is a researcher in the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley. He is working on a book that argues that the intrinsic growth of people and institutions should be the primary focus of global development. Previously, Toyama co-founded Microsoft Research India, where he started an interdisciplinary research group to understand how electronic technology could support the socio-economic development of the world’s impoverished communities.
