What’s Revolutionary Today?

Scott Kirsner has spent two decades as a business journalist and contributing editor at the Boston Globe, Wired Magazine, Fast Company, Variety, The New York Times, BusinessWeek, and other publications. Scott is the author of several books on innovation and technology, including a collaboration with George Lucas, Inventing the Movies, which explores the challenge of bringing new ideas to a century-old, change-resistant industry: Hollywood. His most recent book is Innovation Economy: True Stories of Startups, Flame-Outs, and Inventing the Future in New England.

Scott has appeared on NBC's Today Show, Yahoo Finance, CNN, NPR's Science Friday, the Discovery Channel, and WBUR's Radio Boston. His latest project is co-founding a new organization, The Innovation Trail of Greater Boston. You can follow it on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn: @BostonInnoTrail, or learn more at theinnovationtrail.org

Robert Allison is a Professor of History at Suffolk University in Boston, and also teaches at the Harvard Extension School. His main interest in teaching and writing is American history. In addition to being president of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, he chairs Revolution 250, a consortium of organizations planning commemorations of the Revolution's 250th anniversaries, is a life-trustee of the USS CONSTITUTION Museum, and is involved with other history organizations. Allison is the author of several books about Boston and the American Revolution, including The American Revolution: A Concise History, and A Short History of Boston.

Jazz Dottin is the host and producer of Black Gems Unearthed, an entertaining video series about Black History in Massachusetts. In the series, she brings viewers to cities and towns across “The Bay State” to learn about Black and African descended people who have made their mark in Massachusetts and beyond.

Jazz is a marketing and event management professional based in Greater Boston with a love for storytelling. She works at Brandeis University as the Senior Communications and Events Administrator for the Divisions of Creative Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. Jazz holds a B.S. in Tourism & Hospitality Management and a B.A. in Spanish from Temple University, and an M.S. in Digital Marketing & Design from Brandeis University. She also is a certified Tour Director through TripSchool.

Samantha Johnson is the founder and CEO of Tatum Robotics, a company dedicated to developing innovative assistive technology for the DeafBlind community. Her journey began at Northeastern University, where she pursued her degree in bioengineering and first encountered the challenges faced by DeafBlind individuals. This experience sparked her passion for accessibility and led to the development of Tatum Robotics’ flagship technology, the Tatum T1—a robotic hand designed to provide first-time independent access to tactile sign.

Tatum Robotics has grown into a dynamic team partnering with leading institutions such as the Helen Keller National Center, Perkins School for the Blind, and Gallaudet University. She has secured non-dilutive funding through programs like NSF SBIR and participated in incubators such as the MIT Solve and the MassRobotics Accelerator.

Sorin is the co-founder and CEO of Transaera, a startup developing a new class of ultra-efficient air conditioning systems.  Transaera is on a mission to cut the cost of ownership of air conditioners by more than half using a combination of novel materials and hardware designs.

Prior to Transaera, Sorin co-founded and served as CEO of Promethean Power Systems, a manufacturer and operator of cold-storage and refrigeration systems for preserving fruits, vegetables, and milk in emerging markets.   He is the principal inventor of Promethean’s enabling technology, an energy storage device that provides effective backup in areas with unpredictable grid power.   Tens of thousands of farmers in rural India are using this technology to reduce harvest spoilage and increase their income.  

Sorin is also one of the founders of Greentown Labs, a grassroots effort which has grown to become the nation’s largest cleantech incubator. He is trained as an electrical engineer and holds an MS in Engineering and Management from Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he teaches a course on product design for emerging markets.  He is originally from Romania.