Classes and academic research help launch companies
Second in a two-part series examining MIT’s entrepreneurial climate. Read part one here.Over the years, MIT students have created an array of clubs, workshops and competitions to foster entrepreneurship and help those who aim to start businesses. Increasingly, though, entrepreneurship is not just an extracurricular activity but — in many cases — an integral part of students’ academic work. In other cases, student research ends up becoming the core of a spinoff company.Across the Institute’s schools and departments, a wide variety of classes are aimed not only at fostering the skills needed to start and manage a business, but also at generating or fine-tuning ideas, helping develop them into real-world companies. Many of these classes — with titles such as “Development Ventures,” “Energy Ventures” and “Imaging Ventures” — encourage students to form teams and start developing ideas and business plans over the course of a semester. In many cases, these...