Healthy Food In Schools

By Kara Miller   |   Friday, July 20, 2012   0 comments.

How do you bring healthy eating to the school cafeteria? A researcher from Harvard’s School of Public Health talks about some fascinating new findings that may offer real answers - at a time when one in three American children is overweight or obese.

Plus, we hear from a chef about his shift from high-end restaurants to public school lunchrooms -  and the surprising challenges he faced.  

Our guests:

• Juliana Cohen, research fellow at Harvard School of Public Health


• Ellen Parker, Executive Director at Project Bread


• Chef Kirk Conrad, Project Bread’s Chef in Residence

Chef Kirk Conrad (Courtesy)

Marissa Mayer Rises To The Top

By Kara Miller   |   Friday, July 20, 2012   0 comments.

Marissa Mayer (AP)

Just a few months ago, I spoke on this program with Marissa Mayer, who was then a Vice President at Google - and one of the most visible women in Silicon Valley - though, when we talked, she shrugged off that distinction.

Today, we look back at some key parts of that interview and analyze the ascension of the  the 37-year-old to the chief executive job at Yahoo.

We have analysis from:
 

• Patricia Greene, Paul T. Babson Chair in Entrepreneurial Studies at Babson College and National Academic Director of Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses

Research on Internet Dating

By Kara Miller   |   Friday, July 13, 2012   0 comments.

 

Source: www.freedigitalphotos.net

 

What does the newest research tell us about online dating?

We look at the huge business of online dating. Why is the industry so powerful? How does it work? And what’s the best way to actually find someone? We look at why people are lured online — and what sites really work. Kara Miller talked with Bob Seay about Harvard Business School professor Mikolaj Piskorski's research on the topic.

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Too Many Workers in Math and Science?

By Kara Miller   |   Saturday, July 14, 2012   0 comments.

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Are we actually producing too many workers in math and science fields?

Today, we bring you the flip side of a story we recently covered. One professor argues that there are no shortage of qualified math and science graduates in America — despite what companies say.

Many high-tech workers report that they can’t find jobs — but people who run companies are wringing their hands. What’s going on here? We dive into the debate.

• Shane Lopez, senior scientist in residence at Gallup
• Hal Salzman, professor and senior faculty fellow at John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, Rutgers University
  Read Salzman's Nature article (pdf)
• Abby Charest, Ph.D. candidate and research assistant at Worcester Polytechnic Institute 

Encore: Crowdsourcing

By Kara Miller   |   Saturday, June 9, 2012   0 comments.

Kickstarting Local Ideas

This week, we look at the power of crowdsourcing. What happens you pool wisdom, ideas, solutions — even money?

The co-founders of Supermechanical make their pitch to the crowd to help fund their project, Twine.

First, we look at the crowdsourcing phenomenon, Kickstarter. A company started less than three years ago by a few guys who thought that people might be able to get friends and colleagues to fund each other’s projects.

"It's a website where people raise money for creative projects. People make films, they make records, they do art, photography, food -- any sort of thing that springs from the imagination. Someone comes on, and they say what they want to do, and they invite the public and their network to contribute money to their project," explained co-founder Yancey Strickler.

Users set a funding goal when they start their project, and donors' credit cards are only charged if the money is raised.

"It's all or nothing," Strickler said.

We're joined by two inventors and a professor who know Kickstarter well.

Guests:

• John Kestner, co-founder, Supermechanical

• Slava Menn, co-founder, Bike Gotham

• Karim R. Lakhani, assistant professor, Harvard Business School; director, Harvard-NASA Tournament Laboratory

Crowdsourcing for Science, Medicine and Government

Part 1:

 

Part 2:

The power of crowdsourcing isn't limited to start-ups. Next, we explore the role it plays in science, medicine and even municipal affairs.

Many CEO's are expected to solve problems. But we talk with one whose goal is to find them — medical, environmental, and technical — and send them out to the crowd.

One of those problems was finding a biomarker for Lou Gehrig’s Disease, which would allow scientists to begin working on a cure. And a scientists found it.

Plus, we explore how more cities are using crowdsourcing to identify and solve local problems.

Guests:

• Dwayne Spradlin, CEO, Innocentive

• Nigel Jacob, co-chair, Boston's New Office of Urban Mechanics

• Melanie Leitner, chief scientific officer, Prize4Life

 

Two Mass. High School Students Named Intel Finalists

By Kara Miller   |   Monday, March 12, 2012   0 comments.

March 13, 2012

Innovation Hub's Kara Miller talked with both finalists.

BOSTON — It's easy to overlook the incredible learning that takes place in our high schools when so much of what we talk about is budgets, testing, and "no child left behind."

Thanks to competitions like the Intel Science Talent Search, we can turn our focus to a couple of Massachusetts high school students and the innovations in Mathematics that led both of them to America's oldest and most prestigious, pre-college science competition. The Intel STS began awarding cash prizes to the country's top teenage researchers seventy years ago, and the list of alumni includes people who have gone on to earn more than 100 of the world’s most distinguished honors, including seven Nobel Prizes and four National Medals of Science.

All forty finalists are awarded cash prizes, ranging from $7,500 to the $100,000 grand prize. To enter the competition, students submit written reports of scientific research they have conducted during the school year. It's an extensive application, demonstrating creativity and interest in science, and requires supporting documents from schools, advisors and mentors.

Both He and Ding expressed surprise at becoming finalists, but they told Kara they have enjoyed their time in Washington D.C. with the other 38 students from across the U.S. Both young men entered the competition with research in Mathematics. He did his project at MIT. Using computer programming, He proved that certain types of rules are universal, in the sense that they can model all other rules, and in the process he gained insight into the symmetries and structure of rotor-routers. Ding has improved our understanding of representation theory of infinitesimal Cherednik algebras. Representation theory is a topic in algebra concerning symmetries of vector spaces.

While in Washington, D.C., the finalists meet leading scientists, visit historic places and meet with distinguished national leaders. Students display their research at the National Geographic Society where they describe their work to visitors. The video below, from the Society for Scientists, shows interviews with last year's finalists and will give you an idea of what Xiaoyu and David's week as STS finalists was like:

About Innovation Hub

Each week, Kara Miller talks to Boston's most innovative thinkers, examining new ideas and potential solutions to today’s many challenges. Topics range from education to health care to green energy. Join us on Saturdays at 7 a.m. and Sundays at 10 p.m.

Kara Miller
As a radio host, Kara Miller has interviewed thinkers from E.J. Dionne to Howard Gardner, Deepak Chopra to Lani Guinier. She is a panelist on WGBH-TV's "Beat the Press," as well as an Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Her writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, The National Journal, The Boston Herald, Boston Magazine, and The International Herald Tribune.

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