“Kentucky wants MIT to stop destroying its jobs. MIT is listening,” by Journalism Professor Jeff Howe was published in The Boston Globe Magazine, November 19.

“Shortly after last year’s presidential election MIT alum and research affiliate Sam Ford attended a laboratory demonstration by MIT roboticist Daniela Rus. She showed off a prototype of a dime-sized origami robot made out of meat byproducts. It’s designed to be swallowed, then be guided through a patient’s stomach to patch up internal wounds. At the typical MIT demo, visitors ask researchers questions, but Rus had one for Ford, who had come up from his home in Bowling Green, Kentucky: Was his state marked by the bitter pessimism evident in other parts of Middle America? “It’s hard to be excited about the future of work,” Ford says he told her, “if you don’t think you’re in it.”

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