It’s May 1 — international workers’ day in many parts of the world — but for some anxious teens here in the U.S. it’s the day to decide where to go to college. And everyone, it seems, from family to college counselors to teachers to friends is eager to help them make the right decision. …
Morning Prayers @ Memorial Church
Today I was lucky enough to speak at the morning prayers service, a Harvard tradition since its founding in 1636 (more here). Many thanks to Jonathan Walton, who is the Pusey Minister of Harvard’s Memorial Church and the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals in the Faculty of Arts & Sciences — and a true proponent …
Privacy in a world of indiscriminate tracking
How do we understand privacy in a world full of tracking? This week Julia Angwin spoke at the Shorenstein Center (recap here), and offered a high level overview of some of the privacy concerns specific to the data-rich world we inhabit today. These ranged from the specter of government surveillance drones over U.S. cities tracking your every movement …
Highlights from #hackharvard
The third annual #hackharvard brought together 17 teams collaborating over 10 days, attending 21 seminars, meeting with 24 mentors, and consuming an undisclosed and no doubt enormous amount of Red Bull and candy. Today’s demo day was the culmination, with a terrific keynote from Hugo Van Vuuren (serial Harvard alum and Experiment Fund partner) and deft …
Visualize your city with Foursquare checkins
Last week an analyst firm predicted that Foursquare will fail in 2013, citing (among other issues) low revenues despite 3 billion check-ins to date. As an early adopter, I agree that there’s a need to create value for the user, with more concrete benefit either in content (à la Yelp) or deals (for people other …
"The cloud" — way better than the buzzword
Cloud Terrace is astonishing — it’s a wire mesh cloud with 10,000 crystals hovering over a reflecting pool at Dumbarton Oaks, a DC-based research library and collection (and host of the WWII era Dumbarton Oaks conference). Curious what else they get up to down there? Researchers are now blogging some of the pieces in their collection.
What makes a video go viral?
When people starting calling/texting/emailing me on Monday about Harvard baseball’s inspired version of “Call Me, Maybe,” I had a sense it might captivate people – but I didn’t predict how much. The video’s been picked up everywhere from Good Morning America to New York Daily News to Mashable, with views closing in on 880,000 at …
edX is here
edX is a joint partnership between The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard University to offer online learning to millions of people around the world. edX will offer Harvard and MIT classes online for free. Through this partnership, the institutions aim to extend their collective reach to build a global community of online learners …
Visualizing the #linsanity
Checking out visual.ly to track the rise and fall of #linsanity – with Obama as top influencer. Great way to see the wax and wane of a topic on Twitter.