HBS Announces 2018 Goldsmith Fellows, and More – Boston News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from Boston business schools this week.
Hope in the Face of Climate Change Catastrophe – MIT Newsroom
The MIT Sloan Podcast “Data Made to Matter” hosted Professor John Sterman who used the platform to discuss the simulator he and his Climate Interactive colleagues put together to benefit both the general public and policymakers.
“We’re finding new mechanisms that can lead to potential tipping points and the possibility of runaway climate change. So that’s a little discouraging. It’s getting worse and worse,” Sterman says.
“But on the economic and technology side the news is getting better every day, every day it’s getting cheaper to deploy wind, solar, efficiency. Every day we find out that it’s getting easier to do these things. Every day we find out more and more people understand that the climate is changing.”
You can read the full article here.
Harvard Business School Announces 2018 Goldsmith Fellows – Harvard Business School Blog
HBS unveiled this year’s Horace W. Goldsmith Fellowships, which put $10,000 toward the tuition of 7-10 incoming students from the nonprofit and public sectors that “demonstrate a strong commitment to continued career paths in these areas.”
Here is a complete list of the 2018 Goldsmith Fellows:
- Rishabh Agarwal, a former financial analyst and principal at charter school network Success Academy.
- Mollie Breen, a former Applied Research Mathmatician at the NSA.
- Kaushal Jain, who “oversaw malaria supply chain planning for multiple countries in Asia, Southern Africa, and Mesoamerica” as part of the Clinton Health Access Initiative
- Micah MacFarlane, cofounder of the Clinton Health Access Initiative’s global tuberculosis program, Asian Development Bank specialist, and principal at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
- Pratik Matai, who previously led “due diligence and capacity building” for Dasra, India’s “leading strategic philanthropy foundation.”
- Peggy Ochola, founder of PACE, which “serves students in under-resourced schools in informal settlements and rural areas in Nairobi.”
- Sophia Richter, former Assistant VP of Strategy at the NYC Economic Development Corporation.
- Emily Schlichting, whose past experience includes the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; and Blue Cross Blue Shield Nebraska.
- Viria Vichit-Vadakan, Chief Strategy Officer at Learn Corporation.
- Mandy Zhang, former COO for the Social Innovation Hub, a Beijing social enterprise incubator.
You can read more about the Harvard Goldsmith Fellows here.
Israel, the Startup Nation – D’Amore-McKim Blog
D’Amore-McKim recently profiled the 20 cross-disciplinary students that took part in the second annual “Dialogue of Civilizations: Entrepreneurship and Global Consulting in Israel” program, which combined historical sightseeing with “big business and young startup visits [for] students to experience the many facets of Israel.”
In a recent D’Amore-McKim Blog entry, DMSB Associate Professor of Marketing and Trip Leader Amir Grinstein says;
“Students got fantastic exposure to the booming Israeli ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as to the Israeli culture, history and social fabric. They made life long experiences and friendships. Especially of value were their ties with Israeli students from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev who partnered with us on this program.”
Of the experience, Manting Hong, (’21) writes, “The entrepreneurial spirit in the startup Nation is very unique. How Israelis view entrepreneurship, startup projects, and how they start a project are different. Bravery, perspective, close collaborations, open-mindedness, and crazy, are probably words that I would describe the startup culture there.”
D’Amore-McKim undergrads on their recent trip / Photo via http://www.damore-mckim.northeastern.edu
Hong adds, “And I do believe these are five factors that increase the possibility of successfully launch a business. The way of looking at each project in an “ecosystem” way is something that enhanced my business mindset the most, and I’m bringing it back to my startup. With all experiences in Israel, I believe it will help me to grow my startup in the following months.”
You can read the full article here.
Fighting Fake News, Working Mothers, and More – Boston News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from Boston business schools this week.
Lazy Thinking, Not Political Bias, Drives Fake News – MIT Sloan Newsroom
MIT Sloan Associate Professor David Rand and the University of Regina’s Gordon Pennycook recently published a new study that illuminates what actually perpetuates fake news—a “lack of analytical thinking.”
Professor Rand writes, “Our study suggests that falling for fake news is a symptom of cognitive laziness rather than motivated reasoning or self-deception. That is, contrary to popular belief, it is not the case that people are thinking too much about the wrong things. Rather, a little thinking might go a long way to fix the problem of fake news.”
In a study that surveyed “3,446 participants to rate the accuracy of headlines from actual news stories from Facebook,” the duo found that “people who engage in more analytic thinking, as measured by the Cognitive Reflection Test, are better at discerning true from false—regardless of identified motivations or political biases.”
You can read more about the research here.
What’s Your Carbon Footprint? You Probably Have No Idea. – D’Amore-McKim Blog
In a recently published study, D’Amore-McKim Professor Amir Grinstein surveyed 1,000 people to “guess the amount of CO2 emitted from burning one gallon of gasoline and the amount of calories in one gallon of whole milk.”
The goal was to “examine people’s knowledge of their own carbon footprint and how they can better educate themselves about the real impact they have on the environment.”
Grinstein believes that in order to change the public’s understanding of its own carbon footprints, they must have a “better understanding of how CO2 emissions play a role in everyday life allows people to decide if they’re willing to step up and change.”
Check out the full article here.
Kids of Working Moms Grow Into Happy Adults – Working Knowledge
New research from Harvard Business School Professor Kathleen McGinn found that, despite the narrative, working mothers often lead to happier and more successful children.
McGinn, the Cahners-Rabb Professor of Business Administration, says, “People still have this belief that when moms are employed, it’s somehow detrimental to their children. So our finding that maternal employment doesn’t affect kids’ happiness in adulthood is really important.”
The preliminary results of McGinn’s work were originally published three years ago, specifically regarding the career success of daughters of working mothers, in contrast to stay-at-home mothers.. When the story reached The New York Times, however, there was some obvious blow-back. McGinn recalls:
“Many decried the research as another installment of the ‘mommy wars.’ But the most common response was from mothers who suffered guilt, self-doubt, and disapproval from others. They found our preliminary results to be welcome news.”
However, McGinn’s research, which was conducted alongside Mayra Ruiz Castro of Kingston University in the UK, and Elizabeth Long Lingo of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, found that the careers of sons of working mothers were not generally effected. Rather, their attitudes were different in contrast to stay-at-home-mothers.
“Sons are influenced in other ways when their moms work. The sons of employed mothers hold significantly more egalitarian gender attitudes—even more so than the daughters of stay-at-home moms, a finding that surprised McGinn because it shows that the influence of maternal employment may even outweigh well-documented sex differences when it comes to shaping people’s mindsets about appropriate roles for men and women.”
You can read more of the ground-breaking research here.
