(One sentence executive summary: If you're willing to support an amazing example of what MIT alumni can do after MIT, please click here to cast your vote for Ksplice in the Forbes "Boost Your Business" Competition!)

One of the aspects of MIT culture I most enjoy is the Institute's culture of entrepreneurship. MIT students (and professors!) don't just want to learn about science and technology -- we want to apply our knowledge to make the world a better place.

Another cornerstone of MIT culture is that we're highly collaborative. Instead of competing with one another, we work together and rely on each other to pull through.

So, in the spirit of entrepreneurship and collaboration, I'm doing something I don't normally do on my blog. I'd like to ask you all to do me a big favor and consider voting for Ksplice, an MIT-founded tech startup, in Forbes "Boost Your Business" Competition. Their concept is actually a beautiful example of tackling hard problems on a foundational level. Ksplice was founded by four MIT alums and friends of mine (Jeff '07, Waseem '07, Tim '07, and Anders '08) on the principle that security updates are incredibly valuable for companies, but restarting servers to apply these updates cost thousands of dollars in uptime or other costs. Ksplice's answer? Make reboots obsolete by "ksplicing" in security patches on the go, without any loss of uptime. The Linux world has really taken hold of their concept - they've won a ton of competitions and awards already (including the MIT $100k Competition and being Slashdotted) - and winning the Forbes contest would really be another feather in their metaphorical cap.

If you're willing to support an amazing example of what MIT alumni can do after MIT, please click here to cast your vote for Ksplice! The competition ends on Friday, so vote soon. (The vote will require an email validation, but you won't get any spam.)

Thanks everyone, and happy Thanksgiving!

(P.S. Amusing side story: when Waseem asked me if I'd be willing to post the voting link for him, I asked him if he actually thought it'd be effective. To figure it out, he compared data from when I posted the link to whatamiforgetting.mit.edu, which netted that site over 400 hits in the first day, and 700 hits overall in the next four days. Swayed by that data, I knew it was more than worth my while to write up a short little piece for the Forbes Competition.)

Comments (Closed after 30 days to reduce spam)

Also, If you run Ubuntu Linux,
you can go to http://www.ksplice.com/uptrack/
and get rebootless updates for yourself.

Posted by: Andrew Farrell on November 25, 2009

Ahhhh no rebooting your computer after updates! Voted.

Posted by: Vinay H. ('14?) on November 25, 2009

I voted . Its cool to see what mit students do after graduating

Posted by: Jamie '14? on November 25, 2009

Done!

Posted by: VAL ('14?) on November 25, 2009

Just did.
Gudluck to Ksplice, its a revolutionary idea!

Posted by: Sam on November 25, 2009

Just went and voted. I've always hated rebooting after updates, so something like this would be marvelous

Posted by: Lauren on November 25, 2009

Done :D

Posted by: Kal on November 26, 2009

Done.
Trying to find it for Fedora.

Posted by: Ujjwol on November 26, 2009

I vote that we amend the bylaws.

Posted by: Pledge Salazar on November 27, 2009

I vote that we amend the bylaws.

Posted by: Pledge Salazar on November 27, 2009

Amazing

Posted by: 0 on November 27, 2009

I voted back when it was sent to rht, but it's great that more people are voting now ^_^

Posted by: NathanArce on November 28, 2009

I saw this awhile ago - didn't know MIT alumni were behind it. It's really quite amazing. They should win easily.

Posted by: Tyler (14?) on November 29, 2009

cool! i voted!!

Posted by: Dimitris on November 29, 2009

Amazing

Posted by: Debarya on November 30, 2009

Comments have been closed.