The Solve Effect

The Solve Effect is a podcast by MIT Solve that hosts leaders, visionaries, and barrier-breakers intent on wielding technology for good. Each episode explores the journeys of people rewriting the rules for global problem solving—from questioning the ethics of data to tackling bias in AI to applying traditional knowledge in the modern world. Join us in inspiring action to global problem-solving!

The Solve Effect is a business podcast hosted by MIT Solve, with 20 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

MIT Solve hosts The Solve Effect, a business show with 20 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #19

  Open Source Is Mischief: Ayah Bdeir on Building a Better AI

  Aug 5, 202629 minS1

  Snap two magnetic blocks together, and a light comes on. In that second, wonder becomes pride because you made it. Ayah Bdeir built a career on that distinction. littleBits, her magnetic electronics kits, turned millions of kids from tech users into inventors and now sit in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Today she runs Current AI, working with governments, philanthropies, and builders to make public-interest AI real at scale. The reason: the AI we've been handed is the anti-littleBits, sealed and obscure and shipped by a handful of companies. Tune in for a conversation all about: The Iftar table AI got wrong: An AI-generated dinner flyer came back with orange hummus. Ayah couldn’t let that slide, and so she worked and iterated until a wayward prompt became an entire mission for cultural preservation at Current AI. Fund, build, bridge: Six months in, Ayah is running a tech company, a philanthropy, and a government body at once. AI's pace is the only reason those three can move together. AI's Linux moment: Governments want resilience, enterprises want a cheaper stack, local communities want models that speak their dialect. Ayah makes the case that open can win economically too, but only if you sell the medicine with the sugar. Full transcript available here . Join our CrowdSolve mailing list for more social impact news: https://solve.mit.edu/newsletters Make sure to follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. Email us at thesolveeffect@solve.mit.edu

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  Episode #18

  NPR's Katherine Maher on Leading "Without Fear or Favor"

  Jul 22, 202632 minS1

  How do millions of strangers come to trust one another enough to share a common reality? In this episode of The Solve Effect, we welcome Katherine Maher, President and CEO of NPR and former CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation. Katherine has spent her career building and leading the institutions that help us make sense of the world together—Wikipedia, Signal, and now public media, at a moment when trust in nearly every one of those institutions is under strain. Tune into a conversation all about: The Trust Ladder: As local newspapers have disappeared, Katherine explains how we lost the "lowest rung" that once connected our understanding of our neighborhoods to the nation—and why that's fueling polarization today. Truth vs. Facts: Katherine's TED Talk on truth sparked pushback, including from Elon Musk. She unpacks the difference between the facts we can agree on and the deeper truths we each carry, and why admitting what we don't know builds trust rather than erodes it. AI and the Open Web: Katherine explains what's at stake when models are trained on models, and why she still believes the open web is worth fighting for. Leading Without Fear or Favor: As NPR faces federal funding cuts, Katherine makes the case for why mission-driven institutions can out-compete the market for trust and attention and what that looks like in practice. Full transcript available here . Join our CrowdSolve mailing list for more social impact news: https://solve.mit.edu/newsletters Make sure to follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. Email us at thesolveeffect@solve.mit.edu

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  Episode #17

  Namya Mahajan on Educating 6 Million Children for $1.50 a Year

  Jul 8, 202626 minS1

  Namya Mahajan built a product for parents. Daycare workers started using it too, without anyone asking them to. Namya is our third guest in the 10 Years, 10 Solvers series. Solve is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, and this special series (hosted by Alexander Dale, Director of Global Programs at MIT Solve) highlights 10 Solvers from the past decade who embody the spirit of Solve: innovation, grit, resilience, and impact. Namya co-founded Rocket Learning in 2020, meeting parents where they already are: WhatsApp. The nonprofit sends bite-sized, science-backed learning activities in local languages, using things like dough instead of clay and turmeric water instead of paint. Today it reaches more than 6 million children across 16 Indian states, for about $1.50 per child, per year. Tune in for a conversation all about: Building for the people who show up: When Namya's team noticed daycare workers using parent-facing content in their own classrooms, they didn't fight it—they built an entire educator program around it. It now reaches 400,000 daycare workers across India. Proving it, the hard way: A multi-year randomized controlled trial with J-PAL showed one of the highest effect sizes in education—at a fraction of the typical cost. Namya shares what it took to run an evaluation nobody thought they were ready for. The pitch that missed: Namya walks through a fundraising meeting that went sideways, and what it taught her about listening before you sell your solution. What comes next: Namya's team is now building an AI-powered tool to personalize learning for millions of children and support the daycare workers teaching them. Full transcript available here . Join our CrowdSolve mailing list for more social impact news: https://solve.mit.edu/newsletters Make sure to follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. Email us at thesolveeffect@solve.mit.edu

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  Episode #16

  Participation is the Antidote to Despair. Joy is Resistance. Kumi Naidoo on a life of activism.

  Jun 17, 202625 minS1

  Kumi Naidoo once helped lead a funeral for an iceberg. Several hundred people gathered in Iceland to mourn something precious that had been with us for centuries and was never coming back. That single act of mourning generated more powerful coverage than almost any campaign from his six years leading Greenpeace. It taught him a lesson he’s carried ever since: facts aim at the brain, but movements are built by speaking to the heart, the body, and the soul. On this episode of The Solve Effect, Hala Hanna sits down with Kumi Naidoo: human rights and climate justice activist, former head of Greenpeace International and Amnesty International, and now president of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative. From organizing against apartheid as a teenager to building a global “artivism” movement inspired by his late son, the rapper Ricky Rick, Kumi shares what four decades of struggle have taught him about grief, purpose, and refusing to give up. Tune in for a conversation all about: Turning off the tap: Fossil fuels drive 86% of climate change, yet for 30 years we’ve mopped the floor without touching the faucet. Kumi makes the case for a binding global treaty to phase them out—in terms your auntie would understand. Artivism in action: Why “Save Santa Claus” might have been a better banner than “Stop Arctic Destruction,” and how harnessing arts and culture can supply the thing our movements are missing most: imagination. Participation as the antidote to despair: Whatever the question, the answer is community. Kumi explains why everyone—from single moms to art teachers—has a pathway into this fight, and how his sister Kay proved that the most invisible people often make the biggest contributions. Joy as resistance: How do you tell the truth about a crisis without immobilizing people? And why is keeping your sense of humor a political act? Full transcript available here . - - - - Join our CrowdSolve mailing list for more social impact news: https://solve.mit.edu/newsletters Make sure to follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. Email us at thesolveeffect@solve.mit.edu.

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  Episode #15

  Audrey Tang Wants You to Sleep More, Steer the Machine, and Save Democracy

  Jun 3, 202637 minS1

  <p>What if we treated democracy the way Silicon Valley treats software—a flexible tool that we can control and iterate on together until we get it right, knowing that it’s a project with no real end? </p><p>In this episode of The Solve Effect, Hala Hanna sits down with Audrey Tang—Taiwan’s first digital minister, the world’s first openly non-binary cabinet minister, and now Taiwan’s cyber ambassador. Audrey grew up with a heart condition that forced her to be radically calm; she channeled that stillness into one of the most remarkable careers in public life, pushing...

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