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

Marissa Mayer (AP)

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

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 

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.

Bob: We're looking at the world of online dating and new research in the field. How big is the online dating business?
 
Kara: It’s huge — about $2 billion in revenue every year. And there’s obviously a tremendous range of sites. Some cater to different religious groups or various ethnicities, some try to position themselves as more casual dating sites and some are for more serious, long-term relationships.
 
Bob: And why have people embraced online dating, even though there’s lots of ways to meet people in real life?
 
Kara: That’s a fascinating question, and I put it to Mikolaj Piskorski, a professor at Harvard Business School who has looked at why online dating is so appealing. He says that in the first place, online relationships — even relationships on Facebook, which are often not romantic — let you slip outside the bounds of real-world or “offline” interaction. With all of the information people put on their profiles, you can find out things that it would be inappropriately nosy to ask about directly.
 
Bob: Websites like Facebook often do let you get around social conventions.
 
Kara: Yes, and Piskorski says that’s part of the key to a website’s success. It has to offer added value and give you something you just can’t get in the real world. That ability to look at people’s pictures and read about them is a kind of secret pleasure that both Facebook and dating sites allow.
 
But dating sites also have incorporated “real-world” ways of meeting people into their structure. So Piskorski says that there are essentially three types of dating sites: sites that orbit around shared activities, sites that act as a mutual friend and help set you up with a few people who might be good for you and sites that feature lots of pictures of people and are a little like online bars.
 
Bob: Is there a site that works best?
 
Kara: It depends a bit on who you are. Let’s take the bar-like sites like OKCupid and match.com. Many people who are most likely to get asked out at an actual bar are most likely to get asked out online. But, interestingly, the people who are least likely to find a match in the offline world tend to look at the most pictures and information about potential dates. Piskorski says that part of the reason for this is that they’re being careful. These are also the people who are mostly likely to not receive an email back from someone they’d like to go out with. So those sites can end up really injuring self-esteem and making people doubt their attractiveness and ability to get a date.
 
Bob: It sounds, then, like online bars have some real downsides.
 
Kara: They do. However, research shows that some of the same people who do poorly on those sites often do much better on sites like eHarmony, which acts like a friend setting two mutual friends up on a date. The idea there is that because they know a lot about you, they’re well equipped to say that person A has a chance of liking person B.
 
Bob: So, does the research indicate that it’s better to meet someone online or offline?
 
Kara: What online companies excel most at is bringing you advantages that don’t exist in the offline world. So, for example, there’s no bar that you could walk into in Boston and see thousands of people, along with profiles. And while sites like eHarmony act as mutual friends, they know far more single people than anyone’s real friends could. So that’s their advantage.
 
Piskorski says that when people ask him what sites give them the best chance of finding a long-term partner, he recommends sticking with the sites that limit the number of contacts you get and help you navigate the process — like eHarmony or Chemistry.com. The idea is that bar-type sites can do people a disservice because people come in thinking that they want to go out with someone who looks a certain way. But real attraction is often unexpected, so being willing to break out of the mold that you initially think is essential can end up being very effective in online dating.

Part 2: 

Today, we look at the changing workplace. Are we looking at a future of telecommuting, skyping, and emailing from home? Will employers increasingly move the workplace to the home?

At Google's offices in Zurich, employees work in hanging chairs. (andrewarchy via Flickr)

Or will offices become more like those of Google and Facebook — with free food, games, and quirky decorations — all of which might encourage you to spend just a little more time at work?

A panel of experts joins us to take a peek at the future. We'll explore the kinds of labor increasingly being rewarded and accommodated and who will have trouble making it in the new workplace.

Guests:

• Wendy Murphy, assistant professor of management, Babson College

• Fred Foulkes, professor, Boston University School of Management; and faculty director, Human Resources Policy Institute.

• David Sanford, executive vice president of client relations, Winter, Wyman

The Gig Economy

A common setup for a gig-worker: The coffee-shop desk. (librarianby day via Flickr)

We all know that musicians, models, and actors often have lives filled with unpredictable, one-time gigs. But what if, along with hip-hop bands, wedding photographers, and freelance writers, we’re all being enveloped by the gig economy?

WGBH reporter and host Ibby Caputo introduces us to a scap-hauling, satire-writing nanny; and a world where cobbling together jobs isn't unusual.

Guests:

• Ibby Caputo, reporter, WGBH

We’re joined by a winner of Harvard’s President's Challenge for social entrepreneurship, Michael Shrader.

His team knew that, every year, more than two million people around the world die due to diseases that we actually have vaccines for, because so many vaccines need refrigeration. And it can be incredibly difficult to get a vaccine to a remote village in Africa or Southeast Asia in good shape, if it needs to be refrigerated along the way.

Shrader will share their ingenious solution.

Plus, we talk to social entrepreneurship experts about a surge of young people who want to do good and make money.

Guests:
 

• Michael Schrader, winner of Harvard's President's Challenge for Social Entrepreneurship; co-founder and president, Vaxess Technologies

• Gordon Jones, director, Harvard Innovation Lab

• Gordon Bloom, director and founder, Social Entrepreneurship Collaboratory, Harvard

Today, we take the pulse of the job market. Are companies finally starting to feel more secure? And what kinds of jobs and skills are now most in demand?

Plus, we look at summertime hiring. Is it a myth that recruitment goes on vacation?

Guests:

• Stu Coleman, partner and general Manager, Winter Wyman

• Elaine Varelas, managing partner, Keystone Associates; writer, Boston Globe's “Job Doc”

• Melinda Gleason, delivery team leader, Forum

Part 1:

Part 2:
 

A girl drinks from a tap in Rwanda. (jon gos/flickr)

We look at the increasing scarcity of water.

As the world’s population explodes, from 7 billion to 10 billion, will violence erupt over water the way it has over other natural resources, like gold, oil and diamonds?

Who will control water? And how much will it cost to access?

Guests:

• William Moomaw, director, Center for International Environmental and Resource Policy, The Fletcher School, Tufts University

• Shafiqul Islam, director of the Water Diplomacy Initiative; professor, Tufts School of Engineering

• Lisa Sorgini Marchewka, vice president, Oasys Water

The locavore movement is increasingly powerful — but one author says the movement is not nearly diverse enough and excludes some of the very people who most need healthy, affordable food.

We look at eating local — from a radically different perspective.

Guest:  

• Julian Agyeman, co-editor, Cultivating Food Justice: Race, Class, and Sustainability

Twenty-three years ago, MIT wanted to find the very best start-up ideas out there. What new companies were waiting to be born? What inventions could change our lives?

Today, the winners of MIT’s 100K Entrepreneurship Competition have, together, created businesses worth $16 billion and generated nearly 5,000 new jobs.

A screen shot from filepickr.io, the first product from the team that created CloudTop, this year's MIT 100K winner.

But the competition is stiff. 

This weekend, we meet the winners of this year's challenge, who may have started the next big thing — while trying to finish their homework. And we'll hear about some fascinating entrants in the competition, like Liquiglide -- which promises to help you get that last bit of ketchup or mayonnaise out of the bottle -- and IoVista, a small device which helps residents of poor countries get a prescription for glasses.

Guests:  

• Alice Francis, co-managing director, MIT's $100K Entrepreneurship Competition

• Brett van Zuiden, co-founder, CloudTop

• Liyan David Chang, co-founder, CloudTop

A screenshot from "Searching for Michelle," a work of by Maja Kalogera art comissioned by Turbulence.org.

We often talk on this show about new advances in science, math, and technology. Today, we ask what progress in those areas can do for a whole other world of ideas: The arts.

From music in video games to web-generated comic strips, traditional art may be migrating out of concert halls and gallery spaces and onto the Internet.

Guests:
 

• Helen Thorington, co-founder, Turbulence.org; co-director, New Radio

• Evan Ziporyn, director, MIT's Center for Art, Science and Technology

Crews set up for the conference on June 14, 2012. (BIO)

BOSTON — Boston is the hub of biotech, says Geoff MacKay, president and CEO of Organogenesis. But as the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) International Convention starts on June 18, some people are expressing doubts as to whether the sector is really creating jobs in the region and whether other parts of the world are catching up.

MacKay talked to WGBH News about the convention, innovative developments in biotech, potential job growth and how Boston can stay on top in the industry.
 
On why the convention is returning to Boston after 5 years
 
"Each year they go to a different city. It hasn’t been too long since they were in Boston. The reason for the quick return is just that it is the city that is the most successful for the event. We anticipate over 15,000 industry leaders and representation from almost every state in the country and 65 other countries. When you compare that to some of the previous states it just hasn’t been as big a draw."
 
On how biotech has created jobs
 
"Today we have 48,000 employees that come from 500 companies in the state working in the biotech industry … over the last decade, that’s a 50 percent increase in job growth. The ecosystem … is vibrant. It includes world-class academic institutions, medical centers and a venture capital community that puts hundreds of millions of dollars back into the community, investing in risky, innovative adventures every year."
 
On the problems faced when bringing new drugs to the market
 
"There are always challenges bringing these to market. If you look at the cost of getting a new drug to market, depending on the methodology of how you evaluate it, it’s anywhere from $500 million to $2 billion to get a drug candidate through the incredibly arduous pre-clinical, clinical and regulatory process just to demonstrate safety efficacy and tolerability to the satisfaction of the FDA. And that can take 10 to 15 years."
 
On innovative developments
 
"The thing that excites me more than anything is finally the arrival of personalized medicine — targeted treatments in cancer and other areas. The second area, which is more near and dear to my heart, is stem cells and regenerative medicine, which is what as an Organogenesis employee is what I focus on."
 
On Boston maintaining its prominent position in biotech
 
"The most important way it can hold on is to realize just how critical it is to the Massachusetts state system…It’s important that the message isn’t lost, we are in an ultra-competitive industry, biotechnology life science, and that we’re winning — by any measure, Massachusetts is the winner…We’re winning but it’s so fragile and the root cause of why Massachusetts is in the lead is because it’s the healthy cross section between industry, venture capital, academia, and government. And so what can we do? We have to foster that interaction."
 
On why the biotech industry is “fragile”
"It’s fragile because of the competition…I think some of the infrastructure that exists isn’t going to go away —the best schools, the best hospitals, the critical mass of industry… So I think we have to really look at the value proposition offered by Massachusetts and ask ourselves how can we continue to be the most competitive environment for young high-growth companies. The flattening of the world is and opportunity but it’s also a risk for us because the companies are more mobile than they’ve ever been before."
 

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

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 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

About 140 years ago, when Charles Darwin was writing The Descent of Man, lots of people had theories about how many races there were. Some said two, some said two, some said sixteen, some said sixty. But Darwin wasn’t so sure. Were there true distinctive differences between one race and another?

We take up that question again, amidst a scientific revolution that is revealing more about more about who we really are — rather than who we might appear to be.

Guest:

• Sheldon Krimsky, co-editor, "Race and the Genetic Revolution;" professor, Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, Tufts University.

Part 1:

Part 2: 

We lift the veil on cybercrime, which can lead to stolen identities, stolen company secrets — even stolen military secrets.

In an age in which information has become everything — and vast computer networks contain our deepest secrets — we have become trapped by the very machines that we rely on.

So how do you fight back against cybercrime? Can you build walls high enough? What does the battlefield look right now? We ask experts who are in the trenches.

Guests:

• Win Treese, associate director, Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering, Boston University

• Mark Hatton, CEO, Core Security

• Neil Creighton, CEO, Counter Tack

Part 2:

This week, we look at medical treatments and devices that may change how diseases are diagnosed and treated.

Graphical representation of part of the idealized human karyotype, showing the organization of the genome into chromosomes. (via Wikimedia Commons)

Just about a decade ago, when the human genome was sequenced, many scientists believed that a new world of biologically-based medicines were on their way.

But today we face two huge problems. Big diseases, like cancer and Alzheimer's, feel intractable. And health care costs continue to skyrocket.

We’ll look at biotechnology and whether it has the potential to revolutionize medicine’s cost and effectiveness.

Guests:

• David Lucchino, CEO of Semprus BioSciences

• David Steinmiller, COO, OPKO Diagnostics

• Michael J. Cima, professor of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT

What's Next for Biotech

A biotechnology venture capitalist — and one of the first investors in Genzyme — joins us to talk about the most exciting therapies in the pipeline and what he’s investing in now.

Guest:

• John Littlechild, venture capitalist; general partner, HealthCare Ventures

BOSTON — As WGBH News reported on May 21, the Casella Waste Materials Recovery Facility in Charlestown takes in 100 tons of plastic a day. Much of that material is separated out by the type of plastic and then recycled in facilities in the U.S. However, some does get sent abroad — mostly mixed batches of plastic that aren't cost-effective to separate for recycling here. Those bales of plastic get packed into shipping containers and loaded at the Port of Boston on to the proverbial "slow boat in China."

Nearly all the plastic scrap that leaves the Port of Boston goes to China: In 2011, 11,869 tons went to that country out of a total of 12,782 tons. That makes Boston 13th in the nation for plastic scrap exports. Los Angeles tops the list with 49,486 tons exported in 2011.

Once it crosses the ocean, the plastic is processed. Most re-emerges as agricultural sheets, stools and other implements of Chinese daily life.

Data provided by Massport.

Port of Boston: Plastic Scrap Export Data

Several months ago, when this show had only just begun, we did a segment on the next big thing. The next iPad , the next Facebook, the next Twitter.

But we got a big surprise.

America, our guests said, may not be up to the challenge. It may not be producing the young minds needed to create and staff the companies that will change our world.

Here’s what Joe Kessler, who is president of The Intelligence Group in Los Angeles, said when I asked him how we were doing producing workers for high-tech companies:

Since then, I’ve asked almost everyone who’s walked into this studio whether they’re hiring new employees and what they think of the talent pool.

Almost to a person, they shake their heads. We need more technical people, they say. We have to turn to workers from overseas, but it can be hard to get them visas.

So, today we ask what’s going on. Is our education system failing to train young Americans for the future — a reality that will impact all of us — whether we majored in computer science or English literature? 

The Talent Pool: What's the problem?

First, we hear from employers. Are they having trouble filling jobs? And why isn’t this issue a greater part of our national discussion?

Guests:

• Michael Greeley, general partner, Flybridge Capital

• Paul Clegg, vice president of human resources, talent aquisition, labor relations, Raytheon

• Ben Russell, vice president of human resources, Bullhorn

Toward a Solution

Part 1: 

Part 2:

We're joined by a panel of educators hoping to empower the next generation of mathmeticians and scientists.

Guests:  

• Christopher Doss, teacher, physics, Boston Latin School

• Aaron Osowiecki, teacher, physics, Boston Latin School

• Arthur C. Heinricher, dean of undergraduate studies, Worcester Polytechnic Institute

• Mark Somerville, associate dean; professor of electrical engineering and physics; Olin College

BOSTON — The plastic water bottle has become a symbol of waste. In April, Concord, Mass., banned the sale of single-serving bottles altogether. But the recycling industry can't get enough of those bottles — and all the other plastic detritus of modern life — to turn into new products. WGBH News examined recent developments in recycling and learned that the conventional wisdom about water bottles might be wrong.

Plastic everywhere
 
Let’s begin where we see plastic the most: the supermarket. Up and down the aisles of Trucchi’s in Taunton, there are all kinds of plastic packaging — bread, butter, tortilla chips, those clear boxes from the bakery, juice, soda, laundry detergent. Plastic is so ubiquitous that it’s easy to forget how often we come into contact with it. But there’s one man who really knows his plastics.
 
“English muffins, OK? You got English muffins. This bag is imminently recyclable,” says Steve Alexander, who heads the Association of Post-Consumer Plastic Recyclers. We see English muffins. He sees the polypropylene resin they’re wrapped in.
 
“Most people tend to take the carton and recycle it, the bag they don’t necessarily know what to do with,” he says.
 
Adding to the confusion, different towns have different recycling rules. Maybe you have curbside pickup or perhaps you have to deliver your recyclables somewhere. Either way, what you see as a random bottle or a bag, others are lining up to cash in on.
 
Bottles in bales
 
Your plastic garbage throwaways could end up at the Casella Waste Materials Recovery Facility in Charlestown. A stale, sour air hangs in the air as the dust swirls each time the bulldozer pushes another pile into the towering peaks of paper, plastic, glass and aluminum.
 
“We see 100 tons of plastic come through the facility a day,” says Bob Cappadona.
 
He's in charge of all the recycled stuff Casella manages in New England. And when he sees plastic — soda bottles, yogurt cups, anything — he sees a commodity he can profit from.
 
“They’re separated into various commodities," says Cappadona, leading a tour of the facility. "Each plastic. A milk jug will go to one mill, then detergent bottles will go to a separate mill."
 
At the Casella facility, a freeway of conveyor belts zips around as water and soda bottles go out one chute, and milk jugs go out another. Blue detergent bottles go down their own tunnel while red bottles go through another portal. They all get compacted into large squares, like bales of hay, and in the back of the warehouse, 1,800-pound bales are stacked so high into the smelly air that they dwarf people.
 
Now, long out of your mind, these compacted, stacks of former plastic bottles, jugs and containers are ready for sale. But who buys them?
 
“Recyclers are actually the end user for what they’re made into. It will go down to Georgia at Mohawk industries. This rug right here was made by Mohawk,” says Cappadona.
 
That’s right, your plastic recyclables are turned into carpets,home siding and lawn chairs. Much of your garbage stays here at home — but you might be surprised where some of it goes.

The slow boat to China
 
At Massport’s Conley Terminal in South Boston, I watch as crane operators load containers onto a cargo ship that’s heading back to China. Cargo ships make a weekly round to the Boston port, and we are regular exporters of recycled plastic scrap.
 
“The idea that we’re shipping 50 percent of the soda bottles to China is just mind-boggling and makes us bang our heads against the wall,” Alexander says.
 
Another reason for U.S. businesses to bang their heads against the wall has nothing to do with exports to China. It has to do with us.
 
“The recycling rate is not as high as it could be," says Patty Moore, CEO of Moore Recycling Associates, based in California.
 
She says part of the problem is that the U.S. doesn’t have the infrastructure needed to collect all of our plastic. Consider this: When you’re on a road trip and you stop at a gas station to clear your car out, chances are — unless you’re planning on taking it home with you — you will throw your plastic bottles in the trash because there’s no recycle bin.
 
“It’s either not being put in the right bins or lost in the infrastructure through collection. We don’t have a high enough collection rate for these materials,” says Moore.
 
And as a result, too much plastic ends up in landfills and the ocean, which is bad for the planet and bad for recyclers. Is there anything … maybe an innovation ... that can solve this?
 
Legal and business solutions
 
“We’d like to see a system where by law companies like us would add a little bit to the price of the product and pay for the recycling of the package after the consumer uses it,” says Michael Washburn.
 
He heads sustainability at Nestle Waters North America, which owns Poland Springs, among other bottled water brands. That means they produce 20 billion plastic bottles a year — and it looks bad when their brands end up in places they shouldn’t be, like on the sides of streets and beaches. Washburn wants to change that by making all companies that make products that come in recyclable packaging to take full responsibility of recycling it. It’s called Extended Producer Responsibility. The concept is not without its critics; Washburn has seen pushback from other big companies, private haulers and municipalities.
 
“We want to move to much higher rates of collection so that there is a greater supply of recycled material. We can have better infrastructure and less expensive processing to turn this material back into a less expensive material for us," says Washburn. That would create a "lower-cost, more robust and more efficient recycling system."
 
The financing mechanism would be a built-in cost of the package. Washburn says it would be miniscule — about .4 cents more for a bottle of water. If you extend it to every kind of recyclable packaging, it would pay for a streamlined recycling infrastructure … one in which you would see recycle bins at every storefront, gas station, park and airport. The slight added cost of what we buy would also pay for the hauling and sorting of this new bounty away.
 
Which brings us back to the supermarket. Remember that package of English muffins that Steve Alexander was holding, with the plastic bag that he says most people wouldn’t know what to do with? It could come back in its next life as …
 
“Could be a deck, could be a railroad tie, the trim and fascia board on your house. Typically stuff with a long second life — 20, 30 years," says Alexander.
 
And not end up in a landfill, a gutter and the ocean. It could even improve the economy and increase the number of jobs. But first you need to recycle it. Imagine that.
 

> > EXTRA: Steve Alexander of the National Association of Post-Consumer Plastic Recyclers talks about the Concord ban.