In the spirit of invention and innovation, students at this year’s Summer Conference programme exchanged high-tech entrepreneurial ideas, attended thought-provoking seminars and lectures, and took in the sights of Boston and MIT’s rich heritage.

This group of 76 SMA students - of whom 28 were from the IMST programme, 23 from the MEBCS programme and 25 from the CS programme - departed from Singapore on 2 August to attend the programme in Boston which was held from 3 to 21 August 2004.

Students in front of the MIT Dome in Killian Court

The programme commenced with training on the Athena and tours of the MIT campus and MIT Museum. The following day, the students were given an insight on “Best Practice in Professional Writing” and “Best Practice in Presenting Information” by Jane Dunphy, Director of English Language Studies, Foreign Languages and Literatures Section at MIT. Students were also treated to a ride on the famous Boston Duck and a tour of the Museum of Science.

The highlight of their trip to MIT was the Entrepreneurship Session where students had the opportunity to exchange ideas with invited speakers comprising enterprising individuals such as Professor Eugene Fitzgerald, Merton C. Flemmings , SMA Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, MIT, Dr. Michael Gordon, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of AngelDeals.com, Dr. Gary Burchill, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of 2Is Inc., and Professor Bruce M. Maggs, Vice President of R&D at Akamai Technologies. They also shared their experiences on starting-up their own companies through presentations of the following topics:

1. Commercialisation of Fundamental
Technologies
2. Light the fire? - A Case Study
3. Making it in Manufacturing
4. Building a Content Delivery Network Business

For the rest of their time at MIT, the students attended classes, lab sessions, recitations and research presentations as well as interacted with the MIT Professors and graduate students at social functions.