Good afternoon, everyone.
I'm glad I wasn't the first speaker after lunch
on such a beautiful day.
I asked Anantha how he actually pulled this off,
a beautiful day on March 1st.
Oh, thank you.
All right.
So I'm Katie Rae.
I'm the CEO and managing partner of The Engine.
And what we do is bring ideas to market.
We're working the translational stage between our labs
here at MIT and other labs in this region
and with entrepreneurs to actually do the application
and try to grow really strong businesses.
So I'm going to spend about two minutes telling you
about The Engine.
And then I'm going to introduce the next two
speakers, who are both working on AI in applied applications.
And both have come out of the MIT ecosystem here.
So there's a big problem.
And I think this is a concept well
known to most of you, which is there's
a large amount of capital that goes into research labs.
And there's a large amount of capital
from the private industry in the form of venture capital
and other formats that go into building companies.
But often, in this translational stage,
before there's real proof that this
could become a big business, there's some missing capital.
And when we were looking at what we call tough tech ideas, so
ideas that have longer time frames, often
equipment, sometimes less capital efficient,
we were finding over and over again
that there were incredible inventions
and incredible entrepreneurs, but missing capital.
And so The Engine was really formed
to try to help companies in that stage and invest into them
and take advantage of the incredible ecosystem
we have here to help these companies become
dominant companies in the region in the future.
So we're really a bridge between the lab and commercialization.
And, most importantly, what we aspire to become
is a home and a place where people
who are working on some of the most interesting and hardest
ideas in the world come to really grow their companies,
grow their teams, and learn from each other.
That's really the mission of The Engine in totality.
There have been many things said about what we are.
So we're kind of a mix of a few things.
We're a fund.
So we've raised a little over $200 million.
We also have an incredible space on 501 Mass Ave
here in Cambridge where we have a mix of chemistry and biology
and maker spaces and office space, where
people come and collaborate and grow their companies.
But we're not time bound.
We know these things.
Significant companies that are grown in tough tech areas
take longer periods of time.
Three months isn't going to do it.
It's not an application people or building necessarily.
And so we're trying to build a one of a kind organization
that both has a fund and the services and network people
need to grow in these tough tech areas.
And we work across almost all of the different areas in MIT.
And now, you might be saying, like, why am I
standing here at MIT IQ?
This is about AI.
Well, in my estimation, AI is going
to touch all of these industries and most of the companies
that are born today.
And so we really sit at the intersection
between all of these different areas, with software and AI
on top of all of them.
That is definitely not my phone.
[LAUGHTER]
And so I think this is one of the most exciting initiatives
that we have, because I think it will affect basically
everything that comes out of this institution and ecosystem.
And I'm glad that the resources and attention
are being put on that.
Oops.
OK.
Only lost one in the audience.
I hope they're OK.
So we really think that one of the magic pieces
at MIT and in the Boston region is that so many things happen
at the intersection, and AI creates those intersections.
So without further ado, I'm going
to introduce both of our speakers,
and then they'll come up one after the other.
And, again, both have come out of the MIT ecosystem.
So the first one is a company called Revive Med.
And the founder is Leila Pirhaja--
Pirhaji.
Of course I said it wrong.
Sorry about that.
And you're going to learn a new word today called metabolomics.
And for some of you in biology, you may already know this,
but I would bet most of you don't know this word.
And our next speaker is commercializing AI,
using AI to pair existing therapeutics with diseases that
currently have no treatment.
And she came out of the Fraenkel Lab at MIT
and has been deeply involved in the entrepreneurial community
here, both participating in Sandbox and delta
v. So in a minute, I'm going to welcome Leila.
The next speaker came out of Josh Tenenbaum's lab,
where he was combining work between humans and robots
and trying to create a common sense layer.
He has since founded a company called IC,
and they're working on a common sense
layer with humans and vehicles.
And he actually is a part of The Engine community.
And so without further ado, I'm going to welcome Leila.
Come on up.
[APPLAUSE]