The Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program is a cross-cutting theme within the Media Arts and Sciences academic program that helps students translate promising ideas at the Media Lab from compelling prototypes towards real-world products or services — i.e., translating ideas into impact. Such translation has historically occurred when sponsors absorb promising concepts and hire graduating students and also when new businesses or even NGO organizations are formed, sometimes with Media Lab sponsors as co-investors, co-developers, or lead customers.

The goal of the Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program is to aid this process, while at the same time ensuring that the Lab’s intellectual freedom and research agenda are not sacrificed. The goal is to generate thoughtful projects that will engage sponsors at a much more useful level, thus increasing both effectiveness of the Media Lab educational program and the real-world impact of its research.

The program consists of several “ventures” oriented classes, including Development Ventures, Imaging Ventures, and Neurotech Ventures, together with the flagship Media Lab Enterprise course. These classes introduce Media Lab students to cross-registered students from MIT Sloan School of Management, Harvard Business School and Kennedy School of Government, and other academic programs, forming teams whose diverse skills can produce well-formed technology translation plans. The classes also show students how to leverage the resources of other programs around MIT and Harvard, particularly the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition, and MIT Venture Mentoring Service.

Contact

• Professor Alex (Sandy) Pentland: pentland@mit.edu