eSight Community News

Date: Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Time:
5:15pm - 6:00pm: Reception
6:00pm - 7:00pm: New York Panel
7:00pm - 8:30pm: Broadcast Panel

Place:
Goodwin Procter LLP
599 Lexington Avenue, 37th Floor
New York, NY 10022

Registration:
Free to members of MIT Enterprise Forum
$50 non-members, $10 extra at door
All members and guests are welcome

Register online

For more information:
Contact: Eddie Quiroz
Phone: 703-862-8848
Email: eaq@alum.mit.edu

Broadcast Panel Speaker Biographies
John Hockenberry is a veteran journalist who has excelled in every facet of the profession, from broadcast radio to news magazine television to print as well as being a pioneer in online content. He is currently a Distinguished Fellow at the MIT Media Lab.

Hockenberry is also a tireless and internationally known advocate and spokesman for the rights of the disabled. He was one of the founding inductees to the Spinal Cord Injury Hall of Fame in 2005. He wrote and appeared in a cover story for Parade Magazine on the 15 year anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act, and is a contributing editor for WIRED Magazine and METROPOLIS. He was a guest on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and has been a stage presenter for national and international design conferences for more than a decade.

Hockenberry joined NBC as a correspondent for "Dateline NBC" in January 1996 after a fifteen-year career in broadcast news at both National Public Radio and ABC News. Hockenberry is a four-time Peabody Award winner, four-time Emmy award winner, and has won an Edward R. Murrow award and a Casey Medal.

He is the author of the novel A River Out Of Eden, and Moving Violations: War Zones, Wheelchairs and Declarations of Independence, a memoir of life with a disability. In 1996, Hockenberry performed a successful limited run of "Spokeman," a one-man, off-Broadway show he wrote.

Hockenberry attended both the University of Chicago and the University of Oregon. He and his wife Alison live in Brooklyn with their two sets of twins.

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Hugh Herr ME '93 is an associate professor, Media Arts and Sciences; assistant professor, MIT-Harvard Division of Health Sciences and Technology; and director of the Biomechatronics Group at the MIT Media Lab.

Herr's Biomechatronics research group applies principles of muscle mechanics, neural control, and human biomechanics to guide the designs of biomimetic robots, human rehabilitation devices, and augmentation technologies that amplify the endurance and strength of humans. Herr has advanced novel actuation strategies, including the use of animal-derived muscle to power robots in the millimeter to centimeter size scale. He has employed cross-bridge models of skeletal muscle to the design and optimization of a new class of human-powered mechanisms that amplify endurance for cyclic anaerobic activities. He has also built elastic shoes that increase aerobic endurance in walking and running. In the field of human rehabilitation, Herr's group has developed gait adaptive knee prostheses for transfemoral amputees and variable impedance ankle-foot orthoses for patients suffering from drop foot, a gait pathology caused by stroke, cerebral palsy, and multiple sclerosis.

Herr received his BA in physics from Millersville University of Pennsylvania, an MS in mechanical engineering from MIT, and a PhD in biophysics from Harvard University. Prior to coming to the Media Lab, Herr was assistant professor at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology and the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Harvard Medical School.

Dean Kamen is an inventor, an entrepreneur and a tireless advocate for science and technology. His roles as inventor and advocate are intertwined -- his own passion for technology and its practical uses has driven his personal determination to spread the word about technology's virtues and by so doing to change the culture of the United States. His vast knowledge of the physical sciences, combined with his ability to integrate the fundamental laws of physics with the most modern technologies, has led to the development of breakthrough processes and products.

As an inventor, he holds more than 440 US and foreign patents, many of them for innovative medical devices that have expanded the frontiers of health care worldwide. While still a college undergraduate, he invented the first wearable infusion pump, which rapidly gained acceptance from such diverse medical specialties as chemotherapy, neonatology, and endocrinology. In 1976, he founded his first medical device company, AutoSyringe, Inc., to manufacture and market the pumps. At age 30, he sold that company to Baxter International Corporation. By then, he had added a number of other infusion devices, including the first insulin pump for diabetics. Following the sale of AutoSyringe, Inc., he founded DEKA Research & Development Corporation to develop internally generated inventions as well as to provide R&D for major corporate clients.

Among Kamen's proudest accomplishments is founding FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), an organization dedicated to motivating the next generation to understand, use, and enjoy science and technology.

Kamen was awarded the National Medal of Technology by President Clinton in 2000 for inventions that have advanced medical care worldwide, and for innovative and imaginative leadership in awakening America to the excitement of science and technology. He was also awarded the Lemelson-MIT Prize in 2002, and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in May 2005.

Dean Kamen is an inventor, an entrepreneur and a tireless advocate for science and technology. His roles as inventor and advocate are intertwined -- his own passion for technology and its practical uses has driven his personal determination to spread the word about technology's virtues and by so doing to change the culture of the United States. His vast knowledge of the physical sciences, combined with his ability to integrate the fundamental laws of physics with the most modern technologies, has led to the development of breakthrough processes and products.

As an inventor, he holds more than 440 US and foreign patents, many of them for innovative medical devices that have expanded the frontiers of health care worldwide. While still a college undergraduate, he invented the first wearable infusion pump, which rapidly gained acceptance from such diverse medical specialties as chemotherapy, neonatology, and endocrinology. In 1976, he founded his first medical device company, AutoSyringe, Inc., to manufacture and market the pumps. At age 30, he sold that company to Baxter International Corporation. By then, he had added a number of other infusion devices, including the first insulin pump for diabetics. Following the sale of AutoSyringe, Inc., he founded DEKA Research & Development Corporation to develop internally generated inventions as well as to provide R&D for major corporate clients.

Among Kamen's proudest accomplishments is founding FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology), an organization dedicated to motivating the next generation to understand, use, and enjoy science and technology.

Kamen was awarded the National Medal of Technology by President Clinton in 2000 for inventions that have advanced medical care worldwide, and for innovative and imaginative leadership in awakening America to the excitement of science and technology. He was also awarded the Lemelson-MIT Prize in 2002, and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in May 2005.