2022 MIT IDE Annual Report

2022 

MIT IDE 

ANNUAL REPORT 

Shaping 

a Brighter 

Digital Future

MIT INITIATIVE ON THE DIGITAL ECONOMY | ANNUAL REPORT 2022 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

02 New Initiatives 

03 Research Groups 

04 Research Projects 

05 Collaborative Partnership 

06 An Event-filled Year 

07 Conferences 

08 2022 Awards & Accolades 

09 Media Coverage 

10 IDE Team 

The digital economy is at the center of nearly every 

global event and every critical issue we confront 

today—as is the IDE. Our work is spot on: We are 

(indeed) shaping a brighter digital future. 

From the information war in Ukraine that led 

off the year, to ongoing AI bias; from intense 

platform marketplace competition, to Twitter’s 

recent acquisition; and from quantum computing 

to Web3, the IDE has been super-charged and 

involved in 2022. We shine a beacon on current 

issues, evaluate the next big digital trends, and 

help stakeholders prepare for the increasingly 

digital future. Our globally recognized, sciencebased 

research, education, events—and now, our 

new Digital Insider podcast—are at the epicenter 

of international business and policy discussions 

that change at lightning speed. 

The IDE is a team effort and we’re proud of our 

long list of accomplishments, many awards, 

accolades, and achievements this year. I’m honored 

that my new Digital Insider podcast, launched in 

June, reached “Top 20” status within six months. 

Also paving the way, MIT IDE leaders, David Rand 

and Alex Pentland, collaborated on a massive, 

three-year project to test a variety of simple and 

scalable ways to counter anti-democratic beliefs 

that threaten the country’s political future. And 

always aiming high, Lecturer Jonathan Ruane 

successfully climbed Mount Everest! 

This year’s events—including our second Social 

Media Summit, 10th annual Platform Strategy 

Summit, and our inaugural CMO Summit— 

brought together leaders from diverse business, 

technology, and academic backgrounds, meeting 

online and back in person for the first time in three 

years. The Conference on Digital Experimentation 

(CoDE) drew the largest crowd ever, with more 

than 350 attendees sharing cutting-edge research 

on experimentation and analytics. 

But we’re not resting on our laurels. The IDE is 

taking bold steps forward by refocusing our core 

research groups and our leadership team with 

additional scholars and topics. Our new mission 

statement, Shaping a Brighter Digital Future, 

reflects a proactive and optimistic perspective 

with the goal of addressing some of the biggest 

Staying Nimble in 

Tumultuous Times 

Our new mission statement, 

Shaping a Brighter Digital 

Future, reflects a proactive 

and optimistic perspective 

digital economy issues today with an emphasis on 

prosperity and inclusiveness. It’s a tall order that 

we are prepared to meet. 

We’ve added two new research groups, bringing 

the total to eight: I will lead the Web3@MIT 

group to identify, test, and validate designs and 

approaches to Web3. MIT Research Scientist 

Neil Thompson joins the IDE to examine 

Technologies that Create Prosperity. 

As the digital economy heats up and transforms, 

we will continue our rigorous scientific 

experimentation about social media, marketing, 

and technology and stay nimble to meet the 

needs of our stakeholders. The IDE’s work to 

highlight the promises—and the perils—of digital 

technologies is possible thanks to the sustained 

support of our members and sponsors. Join us. 

Engage. Collaborate, as we boldly step into 2023’s 

white-hot spotlight together. 

12 Thank You to Our Supporters 

13 From the Executive Director 

A LETTER FROM IDE DIRECTOR SINAN ARAL 

1


New 

Initiatives 

Nobel Prize Laureate, Maria Ressa, talks about the perils of 

fake news with Sinan Aral on the Digital Insider podcast. 

The Digital Insider Podcast with Sinan Aral 

CMO Summit@MIT 

THE 

DIGITAL INSIDER 

WITH SINAN ARAL 

Launched in June 2022 

The Digital Insider Podcast with Sinan Aral 

launched in June and is already one of the 

Top 20 podcasts in the U.S., with speakers 

MARKETING TECH 

REVS UP 

Held April 28, 2022 

For the first time, the IDE hosted the CMO 

Summit@MIT. Marketing technologies help 

global brands—from beer to newspapers— 

like Nobel Laureate Maria Ressa, Facebook 

identify, attract, and retain customers in 

Trust is the new differentiator, not 

just data. How will organizations 

gain the trust of users? We have to 

pay a lot more attention to that. 

Whistleblower Frances Haugen, MSNBC 

Host Ali Velshi, business guru Scott Galloway, 

and Paul Daugherty, CTO of Accenture. Each 

episode takes a deep dive under the hood 

of how the digital economy actually works. 

From AI bias to NFTs; fake news to twosided 

markets; cryptocurrencies to quantum 

a fast-paced, omnichannel world. These 

trends, as well as partnerships between MIT 

IDE researchers and industry executives, 

were highlighted at the CMO Summit@MIT 

on April 28. The IDE helps marketing execs 

understand today’s networked consumer and 

how to use cutting-edge data science to meet 

— Paul Daugherty, CTO, Accenture 

computing, Sinan and guests make sense of the 

customer’s needs. In the process, our work 

lightning-fast changes taking place in the tech 

is upending conventional approaches and 

driven world—from a scientific perspective. 

strategies. Read the report. 

2


Research 

Groups 

AN EVEN STRONGER FOUNDATION 

The entire IDE team recently spent three days developing a 

strategic growth plan for the IDE going forward. Our mission 

statement has been revised to reflect a proactive approach to 

solving some of the biggest issues of our digital economy and 

Shaping a Brighter Digital Future. 

We’ve updated and boosted our research groups to reflect eight 

key topics, as described at right. 

Misinformation and Fake News 

David Rand 

Understanding and reducing the spread of 

false and misleading information online. 

Human-First AI 

Renée Richardson Gosline 

Designing, understanding and shaping Human- 

AI interaction for optimal decision making and 

responsible innovation. 

Technologies that Create Prosperity 

Neil Thompson 

Analyzing and quantifying which digital 

technologies are shaping our shared prosperity. 

Social Networks and Digital 

Experimentaiton 

Dean Eckles 

Creating next-generation analytics for a 

digitally connected world. 

Web3@MIT 

Sinan Aral 

Identifying, testing and validating designs and 

approaches to Web3 that ensure an inclusive 

and prosperous Internet future. 

AI, Marketplaces & Labor Markets 

John Horton 

Identifying, designing and evaluating 

problems, opportunities and solutions for the 

digitization of labor markets. 

The year also featured groundbreaking research by IDE 

leaders Renée Richardson Gosline on Human-AI interface 

and algorithmic bias, and by Alex Pentland. Pentland’s 

work on “Subversion Dilemma” methodology placed first 

in Stanford’s Strengthening Democracy challenge, which 

rigorously compared dozens of methods for depolarizing and 

reinvigorating American democracy across a demographically 

balanced sample of 31,000 citizens. 

View Our Latest Research Projects 

Building a Distributed Economy 

Sandy Pentland 

Managing finance, manufacturing, data and 

human resources in a distributed world 

where the traditional roles of corporations 

and employees are facing profound 

transformations. 

Tech for Good 

Andrew McAfee 

Illuminating how technological progress 

can contribute to human flourishing on a 

healthier planet. 

3


Research 

Projects 

Above all, the IDE is a collaborative of research scholars. 

Our academic papers appear in prestigious journals 

accessed by experts as well as general audiences. 

Among the most important work published in 2022 are 

these five projects: 

Here’s How to Make Deep 

Learning More Sustainable 

Neil Thompson 

AI IEEE Spectrum 

The impact of Deep Learning-driven 

systems is unmistakeable. The problem 

is that enormous computational and 

energy costs are required—which makes 

AI based on deep learning unsustainable. 

Neil Thompson and his co-authors 

suggest that these costs can be lowered 

by metering when and how these DL 

systems are utilized. 

Megastudy: Identifying Successful 

Interventions to Strengthen 

Americans’ Democratic Attitudes 

David Rand & Co-Authors 

Deep partisan conflict threatens the stability 

of American democracy. The authors 

conducted a megastudy based on a national 

sample of American partisans testing 25 

interventions designed to reduce antidemocratic 

attitudes and partisan animosity. 

These interventions were selected from 

a pool of 252 interventions submitted by 

social scientists, practitioners, and activists 

as part of the Strengthening Democracy 

Quantum Computing for 

Business Leaders 

Andrew McAfee & Jonathan Ruane 

Harvard Business Review 

Quantum computers can solve problems 

exponentially faster than classical 

computers can. They will bring about 

two huge changes: an end to our current 

infrastructure for cybersecurity over 

public networks, and an explosion of 

algorithmic power that holds the promise 

to reshape our world. Scientists face myriad 

challenges in developing commercially 

relevant quantum computers. But once 

Challenge. Contrary to the expectations of 

they are overcome, the disruption caused 

expert forecasters, the authors find that 

by post-quantum cryptography will eclipse 

nearly every selected intervention (23 out 

that of Y2K, which cost the United States 

Why AI Customer Journeys Need 

More Friction 


Harvard Business Review 

A Causal Test of the Strength of 

Weak Ties 

of 25) significantly reduced partisan 

animosity. The findings provide a toolkit of 

promising interventions for practitioners, 

and shed new theoretical light on challenges 

facing American democracy. 

and its businesses more than $100 billion 

to mitigate. This article examines the way 

quantum computers will not only upend 

digital security but spur investment, 

reshape industries, and spark innovation. 

Friction isn’t always a bad thing, especially when 

companies are looking for responsible ways to use AI. 

The trick is learning to differentiate good friction from 

Sinan Aral, Karthik Rajkumar, Iavor Bojinov, 

Guillaume Saint-Jacques, & Erik Brynjolfsson 

Science 

bad, and to understand when and where adding good 

The authors analyzed data from multiple 

friction to your customer journey can give customers 

large-scale randomized experiments on 

the agency and autonomy to improve choice, rather 

than automating the humans out of decision-making. 

Companies should do three things: 1) when it comes 

to AI deployment, practice acts of inconvenience; 

2) experiment (and fail) a lot to prevent auto-pilot 

applications of machine learning; and 3) be on the 

LinkedIn’s People You May Know algorithm 

with a focus on weak ties. They studied 

networks of over 20 million people over a 

five-year period during which 2 billion new 

ties and 600,000 new jobs were created. 

The results provided causal evidence 

The Strength of Weak Ties is one of the most influential 

social theories of the last five decades, but until now no 

comprehensive experimental causal tests of this theory 

existed as it relates to employment. 

lookout for “dark patterns.” 

supporting the strength of weak ties. 

— Sinan Aral 

4


Collaborative 

Partnership 

DEEPENING OUR ENGAGEMENT WITH OUR FOUNDING 

MEMBER, ACCENTURE 

We have continued to deepen our 

collaborative work with Accenture, 

Founding Member of the IDE. 

This engagement includes six 

different streams of research with 

active participation from both 

IDE researchers and Accenture 

business sponsors; multiple speaking 

engagements by Accenture leadership 

and IDE researchers. 

With plenty more in store for 2023, the 

collaboration this year included: 

An interview with Accenture CTO 

Paul Daugherty on Sinan Aral’s 

Digital Insider podcast. 

A quarterly newsletter customized 

for Accenture. 

A Business of Quantum Computing 

Competition sponsored by Accenture. 

Image at left: Dr. Svenja Falk of Accenture Research (at left) led a lively panel on scaling innovation, 

monetizing data, and more at the 10th Annual Platform Strategy Summit. 

5



Zoe Cullen 

Harvard Business School 

SPRING/FALL 2022 SEMINARS 

IDE Seminar Series 

Himabindu Lakkaraju 


Philippe Roussiere & 

Praveen Tanguturi 

Accenture 

Catherine Thomas 

London School of Economics 

& Political Science 

Svenja Falk, Accenture 

Geoffrey Parker, MIT IDE 

Scott Kominers 


Filippo Menczer 

Indiana University 

Ziad Obermeyer 

UC Berkeley 

Steven Tadelis 

UC Berkeley 

Catherine Tucker 

MIT Sloan School of 

Management 

Avi Goldfarb 

Rotman School of 

Management 

Emil Palikot 

Stanford 

Sonny Tambe 

Wharton School 

Damon McCoy 

NYU 

Daniel Rock 

Wharton School at University 

of Pennsylvania 

Gordon Burtch 

Boston University 

Hanna Halaburda 

NYU Stern School 

Manish Raghavan 

MIT Sloan 

Marshall Van Alstyne 

Boston University 

Kristina McElheran 

University of Toronto, 

Scarborough and Rotman 

Anjana Susarla 

Michigan State University 

Broad College of Business 

Rem Koning 


An Event-Filled Year 

Events continue to be our primary means 

for spreading our research insights far 

and wide. The IDE is becoming known as 

a resource and a connector for industry, 

academia, and executives to meet and 

share thought leadership. 

VIEW SELECT SEMINARS ON OUR 

YOUTUBE CHANNEL 

Spring Seminars 

Fall Seminars 

6


Conferences 

Social Media Summit (SMS@MIT) 

For the past two years Social Media Summit at MIT 

(SMS@MIT) has been the most successful event in 

our history with more than 30,000 virtual attendees. 

The 2022 event focused on “What’s Next for Social 

Media?” with five global trends to watch in volatile 

times. Read the report. 

12,000 

Platform Strategy Summit 

The 10th Anniversary of the Platform Strategy 

Summit was held in person (after a two-year virtual 

presence) with more than 350 participants. Riding the 

Platform Wave was the general theme, showing how 

far we’ve come in the past decade; a special half-day 

program focused on Healthcare Platforms. 

Read the report. 

350+ 

VIRTUAL 

ATTENDEES 

EVENT 

PARTICIPANTS 

OVERALL, WE ENGAGED MORE THAN 

25,000 VIEWERS AND ATTRACTED 

NEW MEMBERS AND PARTNERS. 

MIT Analytics Lab (A-Lab) 

The MIT Analytics Lab exemplifies our mission: it offers an 

opportunity for IDE stakeholders to submit projects and 

data to MIT graduate student teams that will use analytics, 

machine learning, and other methods of analysis to solve 

real-world problems. The teams develop results that will 

diagnose, enable, or uncover solutions to business issues 

and uncover new opportunities. At the 2022 Pitch Day 

on September 9, 21 companies vied for students to select 

their projects. Then, on December 2, with a semester’s 

work behind them, the 21 student teams presented their 

final results and recommendations to companies. It was 

a celebratory Final Presentation evening, where the best 

team, Handle Global, was announced the 2022 A-Lab Cup 

winner! Read more. 

CONFERENCE ON DIGITAL 

EXPERIMENTATION (CODE @ MIT) 

With about 355 in-person attendees, this 

year’s Conference on Digital Experimentation 

outperformed in many ways. In addition to 

record attendance, the two-day agenda was 

packed with expert speakers and presentations 

on cutting edge analytics and randomized digital 

experimentation. We view the capability to 

rapidly deploy and iterate micro-level, in-vivo, 

randomized experiments in complex social and 

economic settings at scale as one of the most 

significant innovations in modern social science. 

The event, held October 20 and 21, featured 

IDE’s Sinan Aral, Dean Eckles, and David Holtz, 

along with speakers from Meta, LinkedIn, Etsy, 

Microsoft, Hinge and more. Watch the video. 

08 

42 

PLENARY 

SPEAKERS 

PARALLEL 

SESSIONS 

STUDENT 

21 47 

TEAMS 

POSTER 

PRESENTERS 

7


IDE RESEARCHERS 

CONTINUE TO 

GAIN ATTENTION 

& ACCOLADES 


Awards & Accolades 

Our team of researchers, faculty, and students 

received international recognition for cutting-edge 

work on the digital economy this year. The list of 

accolades speaks to our researchers’ contribution to 

academia, industry, and the public sector reaffirming 

our goals and our diligence. Among these: 

Georgios Petropoulos, 

IDE Research Associate 

Recently contributed to the World 

Intellectual Property Organization’s 

(WIPO) Global Innovation Index 

2022 as an expert on the topic of 

innovation and productivity. 

Rebecca Wenjing Lyu, 

Post-Doc 

Best Paper Finalist (AOM) 

Thomas Davenport, 

MIT IDE Visiting Scholar 

New book out from MIT Press. 

Working With AI: Real Stories of 

Human-Machine Collaboration 

is based on 29 examples of how 

companies can use AI responsibly. 

It is co-authored by Singapore 

Management University professor 

Steven M. Miller. 

The MIT 2022 CMO Summit Report 

Received a NYX Marcom gold award 

for design and content. Read the 

report and find more details here. 

Professor John Horton 

Best Paper Award (INFORMS) Runner-Up 

Alex “Sandy” Pentland 

The book, Global Fintech, co-edited by IDE 

lead, Alex “Sandy” Pentland, is a Choice 

Outstanding Academic Title winner for 2022. 

Madhav Kumar, Post-Doc 

MSI Clayton Best Dissertation Award, MIT 

Sloan Best Dissertation Award 

Professor Abdullah Almaatouq 

Winner of the Wade Award at MIT, 

Most Inspiring Research Paper 

Award (ACM). 

8


Media 

Coverage 

IDE IN THE MEDIA 

“WEAK TIES” STUDY 

MIT Research Proves the Strength 

of Weak Ties on Social Media 

Led by Karthik Rajkumar and Guillaume Saint-Jacques 

Researchers included Sinan Aral, Erik Brynjolfsson, 

Iavor Bojinov 

Research finds acquaintances can be more helpful in 

finding employment than close contacts, particularly for 

jobs in the digital realm. 

The longstanding theory of “the strength of weak ties” 

suggests that acquaintances we know peripherally can 

have a more direct impact on us than closer friends. 

Read the full study 

The IDE has been featured in the global media 

in print, on TV and podcasts, and as expert guest 

speakers. Among these are a Washington Post 

op-ed and NPR interviews on the information war 

Medium publication. This year we have grown to 

4,267 followers on Medium. 

In addition, we have increased content output with 

10 

Connections with 10 mutual 

friends were the most 

effective at helping LinkedIn 

between Russia and Ukraine, an NBC News article 

on Russian-linked social media manipulation, and 

IDE partners, including an Accenture newsletter 

and AI report; and a Capgemini report on B2B 

users find and secure new jobs 

an HBR.org article on job-seeking in the age of 

platforms. We produce quarterly research briefs 

social media. Our researchers were also featured 

summarizing IDE-written papers, as well. 

in TechRepublic, Forbes and TechTarget, 

among others. 

Our integrated promotion of IDE research 

accelerated on the IDE site, on social media, and in 

Our social media presence has grown this year as 

news updates to stakeholders, such as the recent 

indicated by our following on LinkedIn, Twitter, 

“Weak Ties” study, which included a site page, blog, 

Medium, Facebook, and our monthly newsletter. 

social media, and publications. 

We continue to make audiences aware of our 

Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Medium, Facebook, 

work on blogs featured on the IDE site and on our 

Instagram, and YouTube for the latest on our work. 

9


IDE Team 

OUR CORE TEAM 

The IDE formula for success melds the best MIT minds in 

academia and research with outstanding administrative 

and outreach staff to produce leading-edge thought 

leadership. Then, we add the fierce resources of industry 

veterans, international scholars, and top-tier executives to 

the mix. These team members are highlighted here. 

LEADERSHIP 

Sinan Aral 

Andrew McAfee 

Director, Professor, 

Co-Director, 

MIT Sloan School of 

Principal Research Scientist, 

Management 

MIT IDE 

Devin Cook, Associate Director, speaking at the 2022 MIT Platform Strategy Summit. 

RESEARCHERS 

RESEARCH GROUP LEADS 

Daron Acemoglu 

Dean Eckles 

Professor, MIT Economics Department 

Associate Professor, 

Abdullah Almaatouq 

MIT Sloan School of Management 

Assistant Professor, MIT Sloan 


Wang Jin 

Senior Lecturer, MIT Sloan School of 

Research Associate, MIT IDE 

Management 

Kristina McElheran 

John Horton 

Assistant Professor, University of Toronto; 

Associate Professor, 

Visiting Scholar, MIT IDE 


Geoffrey Parker 

Alex “Sandy” Pentland 

Professor, Dartmouth College; 

Professor, MIT Media Lab 

Visiting Scholar, MIT IDE 

David Rand 

Georgios Petropoulos 

Professor, MIT Sloan School of 

Research Associate, MIT IDE 

Management 

Jonathan Ruane 

Neil Thompson 

Research Scientist, MIT IDE 

Research Scientist, MIT CSAIL and MIT 

Sloan School of Management; 

Director, MIT FutureTech 

STAFF 

Joanne Batziotegos 

Finance Administrator 

Tammy Buzzell 

Associate Director, Finance Operations 

Devin Cook 

Associate Director 

Paula Klein 

Contributing Writer and Editorial 

Content Director 

Aileen Menounos 

Events Coordinator 

Carrie Reynolds 

Assistant Director of Communications 

and Marketing 

David Verrill 

Executive Director 

Researcher Jonathan Ruane making his ascent up 

Mount Everest. 

10


IDE Team 

MEMBERS OF OUR BROADER RESEARCH ECOSYSTEM 

DIGITAL FELLOWS 

Joshua Gans 

Professor, University of Toronto Rotman 

Elizabeth Altman 

School of Management 

Associate Professor of Management 

Venkata Rama Kiran Garimella 

with Tenure, UMASS Lowell Manning 

Assistant Professor, 

School of Business 

Rutgers University School of 

Matt Beane 

Communication and Information 


Shane Greenstein 

Technology Management Program, 

Professor, Harvard Business School 

University of California, Santa Barbara 

David Holtz 

Seth Benzell 

Assistant Professor 


Haas School of Business, University of 

Argyros School of Business and 

California, Berkeley 

Economics, Chapman University 

John Irons 

Thomas Davenport 

Senior VP & Head of Research, 

Professor, Babson College 

Siegel Family Endowment 

Alan Davidson 

Hyoseok Kang 

Digital Economy Director, 


U.S. Department of Commerce 

University of Southern California, 

Paramveer Dhillon 

Marshall School of Business 


Paul Kedrosky 

University of Michigan 

Writer and Investor in the 

Apostolos Filippas 

Digital Economy 

Assistant Professor, Gabelli School of 

Tod Loofbourrow 

Business, Fordham University 

CEO, ViralGains 

Anna Pastwa 

(MIT IDE Research Affiliate) Assistant 

Professor, University of Warsaw, 

Digital Economy Lab and Department 

of Technology Transformation 

Claudia Perlich 

Data Scientist, Two Sigma 

Mohammad Amin Rahimian 


University of Pittsburgh Swanson 

School of Engineering 

Maria Ressa 

CEO, Rappler 

Daniel Rock 

Assistant Professor Wharton School, 

University of Pennsylvania 

Michael Schrage 

Visiting Fellow, Imperial College 

Department of Innovation and 

Entrepreneurship 

John Van Reenen 

Professor, London School of Economics 

Irving Wladawsky-Berger 

Visiting Lecturer, 

MIT Engineering Systems 

PHDS, POSTDOCS AND RAs 

Nuruddin Ahmed 

Postdoctoral Associate 

Jennifer Allen 

PhD Candidate 

Mohammed Alsobay 

PhD Candidate 

Michael Caoson 

PhD Candidate 

Sukwoong Choi 


Ziv Epstein 

PhD Candidate 

Harang Ju 


Madhav Kumar 


Wensu Li 


Rebecca Lyu 


Ben Manning 

PhD Candidate 

Hirotaka Miura 

PhD Candidate 

VISITING SCIENTISTS 

Tamay Besiroglu 

Leonardo Serra 

Capgemini Consulting 

Alex Moehring 

PhD Candidate 

Zanele Munyikwa 

PhD Candidate 

Robin Na 

PhD Candidate 

Roy Reinhorn 

Masters RA 

Ziv Heimlich Shtacher 

MBA Candidate 

Sebastian Steffen 

PhD Candidate 

Maja Svanberg, 

PhD Candidate 

Ben Tang 

PhD Candidate 

Hong-Yi TuYe 

PhD Candidate 

Ehsan Valavi 


Emma van Inwegen 

PhD Candidate 

Jerry Zhang 

PhD Candidate, 

Visiting Scientists 

11


ADVISORY BOARD 

Mitchell Baker 

Chairwoman & Co-Founder, Mozilla 

Carl Bass 

Former President & CEO, Autodesk 

Marc Benioff 

CEO, Salesforce 

Mary Callahan Erdoes 

CEO of Asset & Wealth Management, 

J.P. Morgan 

Reid Hoffman 

CEO, Linkedin 

James Manyika 

Senior VP, Google-Alphabet 

Marissa Mayer 

Co-Founder, Lumi Labs 

Eric Schmidt 

Technical Advisor, Alphabet 

Robert Solow 

MIT Professor of Economics & 

Nobel Laureate 

Michael Spence 

NYU Professor of Economics & 

Nobel Laureate 

CORPORATIONS 

Accenture (Founding Member) 

3M Company 

Akkodis 

Anheuser-Busch Companies, LLC 

Autodesk, Inc. 

Booking.com 

Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC 

Caltech Executive Education 

Capgemini America, Inc. 

EcoDynamics 

EMC Corporation (Dell EMC) 

General Motors Holdings LLC 

Grant Thornton, LLP 

Industrial Relations Counselors, Inc. 

(IRC) 

McFadyen Digital 

Meta Platforms, Inc. 

Netflix, Inc. 

Schneider Electric USA, Inc. 

TechnoPro, Inc. 

INDIVIDUALS 

Nobuo N. Akiha 

Joe Eastin 

Michael Even 

Wesley Chan 

Aaron Cowen 

Ellen and Bruce Herzfelder 

Reid Hoffman 

Richard B. Homonoff 

Edward S. Hyman, Jr. 

Gustavo Pierini 

Gustavo Marini 

Tom Pappas 

Jeff & Liesl Wilke 

Xianghui Zhang 

and other individuals who prefer to 

remain anonymous. 

FOUNDATIONS 

Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation 

Google.org 

Thank You 

to Our Supporters 

MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab 

Nasdaq 

New Venture Fund 

TDF Foundation 

12


From the 

Executive Director 

The MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy (IDE) 

is squarely focused on research that is “shaping 

a brighter digital future.” More than a slogan, we 

strongly believe that technology can improve lives 

and societies with careful use and design. That’s 

the world we envision and the one we want to 

shape, inhabit, and share. 

I am very proud of our academic team and their 

achievements that distinguish the IDE in the 

research community and move the dial on critical 

issues. But it’s also our staff that contributes to 

the IDE’s success and growth on a daily basis. 

Finance Administrator, Joanne Batziotegos; 

Associate Director of Finance, Tammy Buzzell; 

Associate Director, Devin Cook; Editorial Content 

Director, Paula Klein; and Assistant Director of 

Marketing and Events, Carrie Reynolds. We also 

welcomed Aileen Menounos to our team during 

the year. We’ve been working with her through 

the Analytics Lab, and we are so pleased she has 

joined us as Events Coordinator. This small team 

packages, promotes, and presents our ideas for a 

broad audience – from our generous stakeholders 

(the individuals, corporations, and foundations 

named above) to academia, public policy leaders, 

and the press. 

2022 was a year in which we deepened our 

research and sharpened our goals. We’ve launched 

new research areas, produced the largest number 

of papers in our history, and refined our mission. 

We rely on generous donors – alumni, corporate 

members, and foundations – who make it possible 

for us to do this important work. We appreciate 

your participation and engagement, as well as 

financial support, so that we can continue to grow 

and excel. 

Thank you, and here’s to a brighter digital future 

for all. 

David Verrill, Executive Director of MIT IDE 

13

FIND US 

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245 First St, Room E94-1521 

Cambridge, MA 02142-1347 

617-452-3216 

CONNECT WITH US 

Event photos by Andrew Kubica 

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2022 MIT IDE Annual Report

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