A Global Summer in Kendall Square
The Summer 2025 AI+X On-Campus Experience (OCE) marked a milestone for the AI+X Global Talent Community (GTC). From July to August, students from Japan, Korea, Singapore, Canada, China, and beyond gathered in Kendall Square—MIT’s innovation district and one of the world’s most advanced ecosystems—for 40 days of frontier learning, industry collaboration, and global exchange.
Through multiple sessions, participants engaged in industry-powered projects, immersed themselves in the MIT ecosystem, and built a global community that is shaping the future of AI+X education and innovation.
Industry-Powered Project-Based Learning
At the heart of the Summer 2025 OCE were six Project-Based Learning (PBL) collaborations with global industry partners, each coached by MIT-affiliated experts and researchers. This model ensured that students were not only solving real-world problems, but also working under the guidance of academic and industry leaders at the very frontier of AI+X.
The PBL Projects include:
Machine Learning in Quantitative Finance – J.P. Morgan Project: Students used statistical learning and reinforcement learning to forecast volatility and optimize portfolios, demonstrating how AI enhances risk management in global finance. (Featured Project Outcome: Reinforcement Learning-based Portfolio Optimisation for Risky Assets using PPO under Jump-Diffusion Dynamics)
AI in Operations Strategy – Amazon Project: Teams integrated optimization and AI to reimagine operations, developing scalable dispatch systems, route planning, and innovative matching frameworks.
AI and Computer Vision in Biotech – Novo Nordisk Project: Students advanced biomedical imaging with foundation models and masked autoencoders, creating scalable pipelines for diagnostic reliability in healthcare. (Featured Project Outcome: Retinal Vessel Segmentation with Masked Auto Encoders )
Visual Data Science – Tableau Project: Projects explored AI’s societal implications, building dashboards on the future of work and analyzing algorithmic bias in risk assessment, underscoring the need for responsible AI.
AI and Robotics for Mobile Robot Manipulation – Boston Dynamics Project: Students implemented graph-SLAM, 3D reconstruction, and perception systems, pushing the frontier of autonomous robotics. (Featured Project Outcome: Graph SLAM implementation)
Applied Psychology With Human Data – Headspace Project: Teams studied stress, feedback, and mindfulness with real human data, showing how AI and cognitive science can inform mental health innovation.
Immersion in the MIT Ecosystem
The OCE also offered rare access to the MIT ecosystem, the world’s most concentrated hub where academia, industry, and entrepreneurship converge.
LabCentral | AI+Biotech
Harvard Innovation Lab | AI+Entrepreneurship
Autodesk Technology Center | AI+Design & Manufacturing
Massachusetts General Hospital | AI+Healthcare
Each immersion showed students that AI+X is not an abstract theory, but a force actively reshaping industries, science, and society.
Community and Global Connections
OCE was equally about building a global community of practice.
The AI+X Meetup @ Kendall Square convened voices from MIT Open Learning, MIT Media Lab, Boston College, LabCentral, Cambridge Innovation Center, and many other Kendall Square innovators.
Beyond the room, 14 international student clubs joining virtually from Asia, Europe, and North America. Participants described it as the moment when “Boston and the world were in the same room.”
Engagement with the MIT Sloan AI Club, MIT students, and researchers further linked OCE students to MIT’s own academic community, reinforcing the idea that the next generation of AI+X leaders will span both local and global networks.
Find more about the meetup here.
This was not symbolic networking but ecosystem activation. When one student from the University of Tokyo introduced his AI+Tourism venture, OCE enabled direct connections with Boston’s entrepreneurial infrastructure, embedding his work into the local innovation fabric.
From Learners to Global AI+X Leaders
The Summer 2025 OCE empowered students with more than technical expertise. They demonstrated the qualities of the world’s top universities: intellectual rigor, adaptability, openness, and collaboration. They also embodied values that cannot be taught in textbooks—kindness, generosity, and a willingness to challenge themselves.
Students built lifelong friendships and professional ties: with peers across borders, with the BlendED team, with Boston-based student leaders, and with local companies. These bonds will continue to shape their academic, professional, and entrepreneurial journeys long after the summer.
Looking Ahead
As they return home, they carry not only skills and projects, but also the confidence, networks, and friendships that will guide them forward. And as the community grows, BlendED and GTC will continue to expand these pathways, documenting their progress and ensuring their voices remain part of a global movement.
The journey continues in Winter 2026, with three upcoming OCE sessions: S1 (Jan 18–29), S2 (Feb 1–12), and S3 (Feb 14–26). Each session will culminate in an AI+X Summit, uniting global student leaders, international organizations, and MIT peers for academic dialogue and collaboration.
The AI+X On-Campus Experience (OCE) is a cornerstone of the AI+X Global Talent Community (GTC)—a platform where academia meets industry, AI converges with every field, and local ecosystems connect with the global stage. For students, it delivers enduring value—whether in future study, careers, or entrepreneurship.
