Dava Newman

Can looking at data from beyond our home planet provide solutions to Earth’s growing environmental concerns? In this fascinating talk, MIT Apollo Program Professor and former Media Lab director Dava Newman, Ph.D. reveals what’s been learned from recent space missions to Pluto and Jupiter, the discovery of thousands of exoplanets, and orbital missions that monitor our own home, “Spaceship Earth.” According to Newman, while humanity is working to become interplanetary and is on a journey to Mars, Earth is the most magnificent planet to inhabit. Mars should not be seen as an easy “Plan B,” she explains. As the Earth is speaking to us, Newman urges attendees to consider the question “are we listening?” She reveals detailed supercomputer visualizations which implement artificial intelligence to curate “the systems data” of our planet. Audiences are empowered to help regenerate the Earth’s oceans, land and air through accessible local to global personal actions and solutions.

Organizations are carefully considering what the future of work will look like and how related skills will be built. Leaders must understand how AI and machine learning (ML) will shape both future jobs and education programs of tomorrow. What tasks will be reserved for humans; what will be augmented by machines; what will AI exclusively handle; and what will be the next generation of high-paying jobs? In this forward-looking presentation, MIT Apollo Program Professor and former Media Lab director Dava Newman, Ph.D. draws on her decades of interdisciplinary work at MIT and NASA to reveal how AI and ML will influence today’s learners and tomorrow’s workforces. Empowering leaders to reinvent the work of the future to ensure that human capital remains relevant, Newman reveals leading-edge solutions surrounding both the intricacies and panoramic landscape of the “work of the future.”

As nations around the world consider their role in today’s tech world, leaders frequently turn to MIT Apollo Program Professor, former Media Lab director and pioneering expert on space policy Dava Newman, Ph.D. to understand the opportunities of the future. “If you are going to have impact, you have to develop policy with tech,” she explains. At the forefront of some of the most important in public-private space partnerships in the U.S. such as SpaceX, Newman was highly instrumental in working with European, Japanese, Canadian and Russian space agencies and parliaments to extend the International Space Station agreement. In this presentation, she speaks to private and public sector leaders to share her tested space development strategies that have been created through nearly three decades as both a faculty leader in the MIT School of Engineering’s department of Aeronautics and Astronautics and as a NASA deputy administrator. Audiences will gain a better understanding of how advanced countries in the space industry built their infrastructure and developed their human resource engines, as well as strategies for gaining government support and launching operations centers.

We live in a time when courage and audacity are two of the most important skills for success. A true role model in being a bold advocate for your work despite challenging times is MIT Apollo Program Professor and former Media Lab director Dava Newman, Ph.D. In this inspiring presentation, she details the personal ethos that guides her work: “Love, Act, Discover, Innovate.” Empowering attendees to become their most impactful, Newman details how humanity itself can benefit when individuals courageously double down on their most important work in times of adversity. She highlights “moonshot” thinking and reveals an innovation framework for empowering individuals and organizations.

Eleanor Roosevelt once said that the “future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” Dava Newman, Ph.D., MIT Apollo Program Professor and former Media Lab director, thinks the most important thing we can do is inspire young minds and to advance the kind of science, math and engineering education that will help humanity explore Mars and beyond. As an aerospace engineer and rocket scientist, Newman has spent her entire career dedicated to furthering STEM education. In this talk, she explains why she may have delivered the wrong message. “We made STEM a thing – you were either in or out,” she reveals. “I’d like to change the conversation. I now call it STEAMD. I bring in the arts, I bring in design – the Makers. No more filtering anyone out, but rather, we must strive for infinite diversity in infinite combinations, empowering the women leaders of tomorrow!” An inclusive, distributed leadership framework will be highlighted along with stories of untold women innovators and leaders.