About the Projects
Several connections linked three of Dr. Sastry’s students—people, resources, food, and the community. These women are pushing for new ways to use technology to connect industry, ordinary people, and governments through bold solutions that could improve the physical environment and the quality of lives:
Aline De Souza Oliveira Pezente applies blockchain technologies, AI, and analytics to develop a plan that will improve the way farmers in her native Brazil grow and sell their products, and access credit and important environmental information.
Doreen Mashu explores why so much of the African continent’s produce spoils or is wasted, and how to design a new venture to address the problem.
In her independent studies, Idoia Ortiz De Artinano Goni explores constraints and opportunities facing public-focused entrepreneurship, government technology, and the future of public tech for cities.
Tracing these three Fellows’ work reveals how new clusters of ideas emerge when students have the chance to deeply engage with faculty and others in the often messy world of emerging innovations. The experience also highlights the value of building on students’ passions and unleashing their remarkable creativity in devising new vehicles for collaborating with others. Student-led projects make MIT a better place by bringing in new research questions, new data sources, new collaborators, new ideas for teaching and action learning, and new ways of thinking.
