In a lively evening of storytelling at historic Faneuil Hall on Oct. 6, the Nieman Foundation hosted “Made in Boston: Stories of Invention and Innovation,” one of the inaugural HUBweek events in Boston centered around the city’s vibrant art, science and technology communities.
With author and Nieman writing instructor Steve Almond emceeing, the event presented personal and sometimes poignant stories from seven of the area’s journalists, authors and innovators. Among other topics, they shared their experiences living as outsiders, finding community, discovering new ways to express themselves and their talents and growing through fortunate moments of serendipity. Their talks offered behind-the-scene perspectives on stories that began in Boston that went on to have global impact.
Featured speakers were Tom Ashbrook, the award-winning host of the nationally syndicated radio program On Point and a 1997 Nieman Fellow; Laurie Penny, a journalist and feminist who came to Harvard as a 2015 Nieman Fellow and recently returned to campus as a 2016-17 Berkman Fellow and is author is the author of Unspeakable Things and Cybersexism; Kara Miller, host and executive editor of the nationally syndicated public radio show Innovation Hub; Joichi Ito, director of the MIT Media Lab; Hiawatha Bray, award-winning Boston Globe technology columnist; Judy Norsigian, co-founder of the Boston-based Our Bodies Ourselves collective that revolutionized women’s healthcare; and Ben Mezrich, the best-selling author of Bringing Down the House and The Accidental Billionaires, the book on which the film The Social Network was based.
The Nieman event was presented in conjunction with HUBweek, with support from Harvard’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy and The Boston Globe. HUBweek was designed as a weeklong series of events and experiences to celebrate locally generated big ideas and bold solutions, the first-of-its-kind civic collaboration between The Boston Globe, MIT, MGH and Harvard University.
