Changing the world, in under 9 minutes
In the academic world, this could be the ultimate lecture challenge: Present a game-changing idea, and do so in fewer than nine minutes. Brevity was not, however, the main goal for the inaugural event “One Harvard: Lectures that Last,” which featured short talks by a dozen speakers representing Harvard’s 12 graduate and professional Schools. The point of the session at the Charles Hotel on Tuesday was to reveal the crosscurrents of innovation that can flow from discipline to discipline, and to expose students to ideas from different Schools, said Divya Dhar, vice president of the Harvard Graduate Council and the event’s organizer. One common denominator quickly emerged from the presentations on such diverse topics as globalization, education, green business practices, urban landscaping, and data systems: the impact of climate change. Global warming was cited repeatedly, starting with a talk on the need to create better data collection and management systems, delivered by David Hemenway, professor of health policy at the Harvard...