German identity verifier IDnow acquires France’s ARIADNEXT for $59 million, hits M&A road

IDnow, a German-based identity verification startup is acquiring ARIADNEXT, a French equivalent, specializing in remote identity verification and digital identity creation. A price was not released by either party but TechCrunch understands from sources that the deal was approximately $59 million / €50 million. Sources say IDnow is looking to do similar acquisitions. IDnow says […]

Indian tech startup exposed Byju’s student data

India-based technology startup Salesken.ai has secured an exposed server that was spilling private and sensitive data on one of its customers, Byju’s, an education technology giant and India’s most valuable startup. The server was left unprotected since at least June 14, according to historical data provided by Shodan, a search engine for exposed devices and […]

Portrait of an island on fire

On January 9, 2020, Landsat 8 scanned this image of Australia’s wildfire-ravaged Kangaroo Island. With Landsat 9 scheduled to launch in 2021, NASA’s Goddard Media Studios produced the following video about the Landsat program’s history. It includes a cameo appearance by Virginia Tower Norwood ’47, the alumna behind the original Landsat multispectral scanner. NASA’s Goddard […]

No charges for Waikato DHB at this point

Paul Brislen, Editor. 30 June 2021, 3:44 pm Patient data stolen from Waikato District Health Board in the recent ransomware attack has begun showing up online, but the organisation won’t face prosecution by the Privacy Commissioner at this stage. Privacy Commissioner John Edwards told Radio New Zealand’s Morning Report that the data he’d seen was […]

Closing the gap for Black business owners

Early in her career, Burunda Prince ’83 recognized that even with a title, a nice office, and credentials including a bachelor’s in chemical engineering from MIT and an MBA from Harvard Business School, she would still be excluded from important discussions at her workplace.  Once, after a meeting about one of Prince’s projects, her male […]

GrubHub founder starts a handy alternative to the gig economy

It started not with a stroke of creative genius, but with a rain barrel that Mike Evans ’99, MEng ’00, wanted to install in his garden. Fourteen calls later, he still hadn’t been able to hire anyone. He started researching the home maintenance sector and discovered that many US trade schools have closed in recent […]

Global-minded alumna makes US forests a priority

When Tchelet Segev ’18, MEng ’18, graduated from MIT with degrees in civil and environmental engineering, she had her sights set on becoming the first female UN secretary-general. She has since added other dream jobs to her wish list. “I applied to be an astronaut with NASA—I would drop everything to be an astronaut,” she […]

Francesco ’70, SM ’72, and Marybeth Pompei

Frank Pompei  is founder and CEO of Exergen, a maker of scanners, thermometers, and sensors. He credits his MIT education with equipping him to build a successful company, mindful of the possibilities created by his financial aid package. “My parents could never have sent me to MIT on their wages as factory workers,” he says.  […]

A legacy of landmark buildings in Malaysia and Singapore

Lim Chong Keat, MArch ’57, has created a towering legacy in Southeast Asia, in more ways than one. He’s responsible for modernist landmarks such as the Komtar Tower in Penang (once Malaysia’s tallest skyscraper) and the Singapore Conference Hall—which for half a century has hosted cultural and political events, serving as home to the Singapore […]