Fostering community amid Kendall Square’s innovation

The Kendall Square Association held its 18th Annual Meeting at The Engine, a nonprofit startup incubator in Cambridge, Massachusetts, MIT News reports in a story published October 16, 2026. Business leaders, elected officials, residents and students attended an evening that paired discussion of technologies such as artificial intelligence with local food, music from the Kendall Square Orchestra, a vote on new board members and awards for organizations doing socially beneficial innovation. The association is a nonprofit of more than 150 members, ranging from large companies and universities to independent shops and restaurants.

The keynote came from MIT Institute Professor Daron Acemoglu, a 2024 economics Nobel laureate, who discussed his new book, "What Happened to Liberal Democracy?" He argued that liberal democracy is under pressure from falling institutional trust and rising polarization. While conceding that its promised shared prosperity has often gone undelivered over the past 50 years, he maintained it remains the best way forward. He also asked how AI could become a tool that expands workers' abilities rather than an enemy of work.

Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui recalled residents and biotech labs jointly shaping recombinant DNA policy in the 1970s, work that helped build the area's life science hub, and credited collaboration across nonprofits, government and the public. Broad Institute communications chief Lee McGuire revisited a 2009 report on the district's strengths, saying talent density, education and a collective voice endure and need protecting. Executive Director Beth O'Neill Maloney framed the gathering around people coming to Kendall Square to "innovate for good."