The votes have been tallied, and the winner of the Republican primary in Kentucky’s 4th congressional district is…Thomas Massie.
With 45 percent of the popular vote, Massie, a Tea Party constitutional conservative, fended off a couple of establishment-backed competitors in the race. That means he will be the heavy favorite (in the red state) to win the general election for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. (More national political context here.)
Why should we care? Because Massie is the founder of SensAble Technologies, the venerable Boston-area firm that was recently acquired by Geomagic. He’s a well-known MIT grad in these parts. And he’s a prolific inventor in the field of touch-based computer interfaces. You can read about his fascinating story here.
Massie is leading a charge to encourage more engineers and problem solvers to get into politics. We will be watching to see how he fares amongst all the pols—and whether more engineers end up following his lead.
Author: Gregory T. Huang
Greg is a veteran journalist who has covered a wide range of science, technology, and business. As former editor in chief, he overaw daily news, features, and events across Xconomy's national network. Before joining Xconomy, he was a features editor at New Scientist magazine, where he edited and wrote articles on physics, technology, and neuroscience. Previously he was senior writer at Technology Review, where he reported on emerging technologies, R&D, and advances in computing, robotics, and applied physics. His writing has also appeared in Wired, Nature, and The Atlantic Monthly’s website. He was named a New York Times professional fellow in 2003.
Greg is the co-author of Guanxi (Simon & Schuster, 2006), about Microsoft in China and the global competition for talent and technology. Before becoming a journalist, he did research at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Lab. He has published 20 papers in scientific journals and conferences and spoken on innovation at Adobe, Amazon, eBay, Google, HP, Microsoft, Yahoo, and other organizations. He has a Master’s and Ph.D. in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, and a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
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