Thursday, November 7, 2024
6:00 – 9:00 PM
Schwarzman College of Computing
51 Vassar Street (Building 45), Cambridge, MA
Join MIT’s System Design and Management for an evening of connection and community.
Systems Night returns in the fall of 2024. Our panel of speakers will discuss how they manage and oversee complex software systems, and how their education at SDM prepared them to deal with these problems in real-world settings. We will also present two awards: the John Helferich Award for Excellence in the Systems Community at MIT, and the SDM Student Award for Leadership, Innovation, and Systems Thinking. The evening will also include time for networking and a Q&A with our panelists. We hope you’ll be able to join us!
Speakers and Moderator
John Hajdukiewicz
John R. Hajdukiewicz is the founder and principal of Outcome Design Labs. He is an accomplished executive with leadership experience spanning product management, strategy, user experience, and engineering. He has leveraged the tools from MIT’s System Design and Management program to drive impactful results in diverse industries. John holds an SM from MIT and a PhD in Mechanical & Industrial Engineering from the University of Toronto. His unique approach combines strategic thinking with practical execution, offering valuable insights on applying systems thinking and design methodologies to solve complex business challenges.
Douglas Hamilton
Douglas Hamilton is the head of AI Research & Engineering at Nasdaq. Doug leads a team of data scientists and engineers whose goal is to clarify and improve the financial market ecosystem with machine learning technologies. He joined Nasdaq in 2017 as a data scientist and has developed solutions leveraging rapid adaptation, reinforcement learning, and efficient market principles to solve predictive control problems. Doug’s notable achievements at Nasdaq include the world’s first AI powered strike listing system, bringing generative AI to board governance, publishing over a dozen patents, and launching the world’s first SEC approved AI-powered order type.
Prior to working in financial services, Doug was the lead data scientist for an advanced manufacturing analytics group at Boeing Commercial Airplanes and built customer relationship management systems at Fast Enterprise. He is a veteran of the US Air Force, a member of the advisory board of The Data Science Conference and a contributor to the Sloan Management Review’s Responsible AI Panel. Doug holds an SM in systems engineering from MIT and a BA in mathematics from the University of Illinois at Springfield.
Charlotte Wang
Charlotte Wang is an expert in AI data-driven energy management and sustainability, with professional experience in clean energy and smart grid in China, the United States, Germany, and Russia. She is a serial entrepreneur and founded EQuota Energy in 2014. An AI-based data analytics SaaS company, EQuota provides grid management, energy optimization, and carbon management for energy intensive manufacturers and utilities to improve grid stability, reduce energy consumption, and carbon emission. EQuota serves utility groups, steel, chemical, and coal mining in China and the Middle East and was listed as a Technology Pioneer by DAVOS and named to the APAC 25 by Cleantech Group. Charlotte is also the senior advisor for the International Energy Agency and UN Energy Group.
Charlotte is an advocate of climate change, having spoken at the World Economic Forum, TEDx, UN Countdown, multiple UN conferences, and CWI. She was awarded the Cartier Women Initiative Fellow Winner, Preserving Planet Award, Ashden award for Sustainability and Asian New Energy Leader, and graduated from MIT. She is a 2024 Maurice R. Greenberg World Fellow at Yale University.
Moderator: Nicholas Borge
Nicholas Borge is a Strategy and Operations lead at IBM Research, where he leads initiatives for system, process and organization design that drive an integrated, end-to-end experience of IBM Research technology for clients and partners.
Previously, he was a Senior Product Manager at IBM Research Design & Incubation; served as Director of Intelligent Automation at Sony Music where he implemented new technology platforms; and founded Impartial.AI, a machine learning tool for news bias detection that was showcased at the UN’s AI for Good summit. Nick also spent a decade at PA Consulting Group, where he led global digital transformation initiatives in life sciences and healthcare. He is an alum of MIT’s System Design and Management program and also holds a BSc in Mathematics, Operations Research, and Statistics from Cardiff University.
About Systems Night
Since 2017, Systems Night has brought together current SDM students, alumni, faculty, and local industry leaders for evenings that feature new ideas and personal stories about systems thinking. Systems thinkers embrace the challenge of solving interdisciplinary and inter-industry problems in an increasingly complex world. These evenings include lightning talks and panel discussions from a range of distinguished speakers as well as time for networking and discussion. Systems Night offers an opportunity for the entire SDM and MIT community to share their thoughts on solving today’s challenges with a systems approach.