contents: "ctr4entrep_fs_draft" ... Florence Sender's handout of Feb '92; icreated: fri, 5 jun '92; -------- For further information on The Center for Entrepreneurship at The MIT Sloan School of Management, please contact the author, Florence Sender, Director of the Sloan School program: "Regaining the Productive Edge" at MIT at (617) 253-3410 or 3352. (MIT mail: E38-129a) For further information on The MIT Entrepreneurs Club, aka "The E-Club" please contact Co-Founder, Co-Director Richard Shyduroff at 253-2000. (MIT mail: E15-443) Internet address: The MIT Center for Entrepreneurship, by Florence Sender (draft of 2/92) The MIT Sloan School of Management is establishing a new Center for Entrepreneurship. Through research, teaching and collaboration with MIT's many entrepreneurial activities, the Center will increase our understanding of the successful development of new enterprises, teach skills that foster entrepreneurship, and nurture new business ideas. No other institution is better equipped than The Sloan School, one of the nation's leading business schools and part of the nation's leading institution of science and technology, to nourish these vital sources of economic strength. For over a century, MIT has been the nation's foremost institution for fostering the scientific and technological creativity that has fuelled American enterprise. Not only have MIT people led the development of such technologies as the transistor, automatic telephone systems and digital computers, inertial guidance systems, naturally- controlled artificial limbs, high-speed photography, and many areas of biotechnology, to name only a few examples; but they have also led the industries that made these technologies part of our lives. A recent study by the Bank of Boston has shown that the over 600 companies started in Massachusetts by MIT entrepreneurs have generated more than 300,000 jobs and $10 billion in annual income in Massachusetts. A similar study conducted by Chase Manhattan has shown that MIT alumni have started nearly 200 new companies in Silicon Valley and Northern California and that these companies have generated 150,000 jobs, with annual sales in excess of $20 billion. Although many are high technology industries, these companies in fact represent the full range of the economic spectrum, including manufacturing, real estate development, construction, financial services and publishing. MIT's spirit of invention and entrepreneurship is strong at all levels. It's Technology Licensing Office (TLO) receives one or two inventions a day from faculty, researchers and students, and licenses almost two inventions a week. In 1989 MIT was awarded 102 patents, more than any other university in the country. The runners-up were the University of California, with 81, and CalTech, with 59. In the last 4 years, the TLO has helped form 20 new companies. Three separate organisations promote entrepreneurial activity -- the undergraduate* Entrepreneurs Club, the graduate student New Ventures Association, and the Alumni Association Enterprise Forum. Although these organisations are distinct, there is much cooperation and collaboration among them, with faculty and business people from the community at large participating in them all. These groups help their members evaluate market potential, develop business plans, find financing, and understand the legal and tax issues. One of their areas of collaboration is the annual 10K Entrepreneurial Competition, which awards start-up capital to the winning student-developed new venture plans. Several courses and programs within the MIT curriculum are designed specifically to promote entrepreneurship. The Sloan School graduate New Enterprises course covers the processes of starting new ventures, including determining market potential, evaluating legal and ethical issues, developing a business team, and seeking funds. The course is part of the Sloan School's Management of Technology and Innovation curriculum, a program unique among major business schools. The School of Engineering also offers a school-wide course specifically designed to familiarise inventors with the processes of bringing their ideas to market. The new Center for Entrepreneurship will coordinate its efforts with the entrepreneurial activities of MIT faculty, students and alumni, in all disciplines. It will support teaching and faculty and student research; enhance the curriculum in entrepreneurial subjects; and promote relations with the entrepreneurial community beyond MIT. The Center will be staffed by an executive director, an administrative assistant, a tenure-track professor, and an adjunct professor drawn from the entrepreneurial community. (This last position will rotate every two or three years.) The Center will also administer endowed research and student projects funds. An organisational committee of faculty and alumni entrepreneurs will provide initial guidance for policy formation, governance and fund raising. Once the Center is operational, an advisory committee of MIT alumni and friends will work with The Center to review and assist in its programs. -------- (draft post-script by Richard Shyduroff) * nb: The E-Club does indeed focus a lot of it's attentions and energies on undergraduates at MIT, but it also includes members and their start-ups and ongoing technology-based enterprises represented by MIT faculty, staff and alumni. It is the one group on campus that is truly open and free to all members of The MIT Community. The E-Club also offers courses and assistance for high school students attending MIT's Saturday and summer-session classes in the High School Studies Program (HSSP) of MIT's Educational Studies Program (ESP) in a course titled: "Starting Technology-Based Enterprises from Zero-Stage." For additional information call Richard Shyduroff at 253-2000 or the MIT ESP/HSSP office at 253-4882. The E-Club has also been instrumental in helping to design and operate the new Cambridge Business Development Center, a project of the Cambridge Economic Development Department. Call E-Club Co-Founder and Co-Director Douglas Ling at MIT at 253-2000 or at the CBDC in Central Square at 349-4690 for additional information. Finally, The E-Club has been developing an office in Moscow (in the host Faxon Company's Moscow office) at the International Center for Scientific and Technical Information. The primary mission of The MIT-Moscow E-Club is to help MIT students and alumni studying or doing business in Russia, and the CIS, better network among theselves and with Russian students of the sciences and engineering who wish to launch technology-based new enterprises with their counterparts at MIT, using the latest in electronic, multimedia telecommunications networks and tools. The premier collaborative activity will be a parallel 10K student competition, with teams of MIT and Russian students developing market studies and business plans for fundable and economically important programs and to improve mutual understanding and knowledge among these countries' most innovative future business people. For additional information please call Richard Shyduroff at 253-2000. -------- eof; .