Harvard, MIT students to challenge IBM’s Watson

Globe Staff

Students from Harvard Business School and MIT Sloan School of Management will take on IBM Corp.’s Watson, the supercomputer that famously beat two human competitors in the TV show game show Jeopardy!

IBM is bringing the intelligent computer to MIT and Harvard on Oct. 31 for a symposium on the ways technology is changing how we work.

The symposium, which will include panel discussions on the future of technology and what it means for business, will feature a keynote speech from Dr. Dave Ferrucci, lead investigator for IBM Watson. Ferrucci will talk about how his team developed the Watson software, which can sift through some 200 million pages of data nearly instantly to provide answers to questions posed in a conversational style.

In the afternoon, Watson and student teams from Harvard and MIT will face each other in a demonstration based on Jeopardy!

“For business leaders of the future, its critical to understand how Watson-like technology can address some of society’s toughest challenges in areas like health care, transportation, urban development, and energy,” wrote IBM spokeswoman Erica Topolski in an email.