Fostering community amid Kendall Square’s innovation

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Kendall Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is often cited as the most innovative square mile in the world. But when the Kendall Square Association gathered local stakeholders for its 18th Annual Meeting Thursday, the conversation focused on innovation primarily in the context of community.

The event, which took place at the nonprofit startup incubator The Engine, attracted people from across Cambridge, including business leaders, elected officials, local residents, and students, for a night of local food and conversation about the advance of technologies like artificial intelligence and what they mean for society.

“How can we make AI not an enemy of work, but a tool for workers to expand their capabilities and build new expertise or do new things?” asked MIT Institute Professor Daron Acemoglu in a keynote talk. “The world is at a point in time where we need new innovations and new adaptations to growing challenges.”