Top 10 Alumni Stories of 2023

From the inspiring story of one of the school’s first alumnae to the rising prominence of generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications in research and entrepreneurial endeavors, the MIT Sloan alumni community had many stories to tell this year.

Here are the top 10 alumni stories from 2023:

1. The late Asha Seth Kapadia, SM ’65, led a life of academic excellence, mentorship, and service that impacted generations of future students, teachers, and women's rights advocates.
2. As Kamal Quadir, MBA ’05, founder and CEO of bKash, explained to students at the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, financial inclusion is at the core of everything he does at the Bangladeshi mobile financial services provider.
3. According to Grace Ueng, SB ’87, founder and CEO of Savvy Growth, the conventional wisdom on happiness and success is all wrong: “Happiness is what fuels success, not the other way around.”
4. Thousands of graduating students, alumni, and their families came to campus for the 2023 commencement ceremonies and reunion celebrations. Among them were over 1,300 Sloanies and their guests who attended MIT Sloan Reunion 2023.
5. Brazil launched the RendA+ treasury bond, a new retirement security adapted from the work of School of Management Distinguished Professor of Finance and Nobel Prize in Economics laureate Robert C. Merton, PhD ’70, and Arun Muralidhar, PhD ’92.
6. The health care startup Cappella, founded by Apolline Deroche, MFin ’22, is using artificial intelligence and machine learning to generate soothing sounds for infants and translate their cries for parents.
7. From day one, MIT Sloan student veterans and reservists are supported by a community of alumni who know what they are going through and what lies ahead.
8. At MIT Sloan Reunion 2023, Professors Retsef Levi and Karen Zheng of the MIT Sloan Food Supply Chain and Analytics Sensing (FSAS) Initiative discussed their work in addressing food and agriculture issues across the globe.
9. Drew Houston, SB ’05, co-founder and CEO of Dropbox, emphasized the importance of generative AI, always learning on the job, and more while speaking with engineering and entrepreneurship students on campus.
10. For the 23 student-led teams in the MIT delta v 2023 cohort, Demo Day marked the end of their journey through the three-month educational accelerator and their first steps out into the world.