by Courtney Hayes
As our highways become the new digital landscape, where every truck is a node and every delivery a connection, a Harvard PhD-turned-entrepreneur is helping build the transportation infrastructure of tomorrow. IQSS affiliate Jinyan Zang, founder and COO of Axle, has created a data platform that seeks to transform trucking logistics.
Today’s trucking industry is massive. With almost four million tractor-trailers on US highways, trucking accounts for over 70% of our nation’s freight. The internet now connects every truck in the United States with the potential to track fuel levels, speed, location, and more. But the industry is highly fragmented, with thousands of brokers and dispatchers working around the clock to manage siloed data streams. As a result, up to 30% of all vehicles are driving empty. And as Zang explains, “That’s burning a ton of diesel without actually doing any work. That's money out of the driver's and shipper's pocket. And that's also worse for the environment.”
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| Jinyan Zang |
Zang and his team at Axle are working to make trucking faster, cheaper, and greener by wrangling hundreds of data sources into a neutral platform. “All these different systems that track the vehicles and drivers have to be able to talk to one another,” says Zang. And instead of pushing a single software solution, Zang’s team is creating a standardized platform on which tech companies can build new ways to optimize deliveries and reduce fuel costs. “We see there's a huge amount of potential that's unlocked when everyone can be interacting with each other. We are the glue that holds everything together. And I think that's what makes Axle really unique,” explains Zang.
But how does a Harvard PhD become a trailblazer in the trucking industry?
When Zang arrived on campus as an undergrad in 2009, Harvard Square was transformed into a movie set for The Social Network, a film about Facebook and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg. As Zang recalls, “Everyone wanted to be the next Mark Zuckerberg. And it felt like all the hype on campus was about how technology is great. It's going to make everyone lots of money, it's going to fix every problem in society, and it can do no wrong.”
But in his senior year, Zang took a computer science class that would challenge these assumptions and change the course of his life. The class was taught by Latanya Sweeney, founding director of the IQSS Data Privacy Lab and a professor of government and technology at Harvard. Sweeney is a pioneer in the field of data privacy, and her class took a hard look at Facebook and technology’s clash with society.
The IQSS Data Privacy Lab began in 2011, as concerns about unauthorized online data collection were gaining momentum. After graduating from Harvard in 2013, Zang joined Sweeney at IQSS, where they conducted groundbreaking research on the privacy of genetic data. Sweeney’s work is now cited in two US regulations, including the medical privacy regulation called HIPAA.
In 2014, Sweeney took a leave from Harvard to serve as the US Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Chief Technology Officer and hired Zang as one of the first technology fellows. At the FTC, Zang worked on data privacy policies and consumer protection issues.
When Zang returned to Harvard to pursue his PhD in 2015, he continued his work with Sweeney as a fellow at IQSS. As part of his research, Zang documented the potential for civil rights violations by Facebook. Ultimately, his findings were part of a Department of Justice investigation that helped change policies around Facebook’s discriminatory ad targeting.
In 2020, when COVID-19 shut down campuses across the country, Zang and Sweeney built Harvard's contact tracing platform. Zang explains, “We were really diving deep in terms of building technology that had to be scalable, and it’s exactly what we're doing at Axle, but just in a very different sector.”
At this time, Zang reconnected with an old classmate and mobility expert Dhruv Gupta, and their vision for a logistics startup began to percolate. With nowhere to go, they spent the winter of 2021 tinkering with Zang’s Honda CRV, wondering what kind of telematics data they could pull from vehicles. Zang explains, “We quickly saw a huge opportunity in trucking logistics. And that was the light bulb moment for us.”
In two short years, Axle has grown to seven employees with thousands of vehicles using their platform. For Zang and his team, one of their biggest challenges goes back to the core issue of data privacy - how to securely collect sensitive data while protecting the privacy rights of all users. Zang explains, “Not only are there machines involved, but drivers too. So, it's an opt-in system, and our vision here is making sure that the users are in the driving seat when it comes to sharing data.”
Now in the private sector, Zang finds himself on the other side of the conversation he and Sweeney helped shape at IQSS. “We're a startup building a giant data platform. So now I get to draw on the experience I gained at IQSS to make sure that we're following best practices to preserve and protect the data we collect.” Obtaining informed consent, respecting users’ rights, and anonymizing where possible are just some of the data privacy best practices that startups like Axle are embracing.
Despite numerous proposals, there has yet to be a comprehensive federal law that governs data privacy in the US. And as regulators grapple with new concerns related to the proliferation of AI technology and Facebook apps, private sector leaders are beginning to recognize the importance of rebuilding trust. ”I think that's the big thing that businesses are increasingly learning—there's so much you can do when you have trust, when your people are willing to share data about themselves. But if you want your customers to trust you, they need to know that their privacy is protected,” said Zang.
Drawing insights from past mistakes in the tech industry and helping shape balanced solutions is where IQSS plays a critical role. As Zang explains, “We’re building that future trying to address privacy and fixing what hasn’t worked in the past. That's really exciting and speaks to the mission and the ability of IQSS to really be a leader at the vanguard of that work.” And for Zang and his team at Axle, the road ahead offers boundless potential.
