The Entrepreneurship & Innovation Track (E&I) is a new offering within the MBA Program. E&I was made available as an option for the first time to selected applicants in the entering MBA class of 2008. It is now a continuing part of the MIT Sloan MBA Program. The track focuses on launching and developing emerging technology companies. It builds a select lifetime cohort of collaborative entrepreneurial MBA classmates, and leads to an MIT Sloan Certificate in Entrepreneurship & Innovation in addition to the MBA degree. The track curriculum heavily emphasizes team practice linked to real-world entrepreneurial projects, balances theoretical and practitioner education, and provides a thorough exposure to the many building blocks of an entrepreneurial career. It begins with the standard first-semester MIT Sloan MBA core, permitting the entrepreneurship cohort to become fully integrated with their classmates in all activities. During the following three semesters, the track requires participants to select from a menu of electives which prepare them to start and build companies, while leaving them free to select the courses for which MIT is world famous.
Overview of the Entrepreneurship & Innovation Track
All MBA students participate in the required Fall Term one-semester core. In addition, all students who are admitted to the E&I Track also enroll in 15.360 - Introduction to Technological Entrepreneurship, led by Professor Edward Roberts, the E&I Track Chair. This weekly E&I Fall seminar, including dinner, is restricted to E&I enrollees. It builds initial ties among E&I students and all key MIT faculty in the entrepreneurship field, including several practitioner entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. The 15.360 Seminar provides an overview of the field of entrepreneurship, and creates special access to MIT’s renowned network. The seminar ends with 15.362, a one week E&I group trip in January for networking with Silicon Valley venture capitalists and leaders of startups and successful enterprises in the life sciences, medical technology, software, information technology, advanced materials, and new energy fields. For the MIT Sloan MBA E&I Class of 2011, the tour will start in Silicon Valley on the evening of Saturday, January 2, 2010 and end on Wednesday January 6, 2010. It will be led by Bill Aulet, Senior Lecturer and Acting Managing Director of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center, and Jose Pacheco, Program Manager of the E-Center.
Professor Fiona Murray integrates entrepreneurial strategy with innovation and technology management perspectives in
15.351 - Managing Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the second semester. E&I students also enroll during the Spring Term in MIT's business plans course, 15.390 - New Enterprises, featuring Senior Lecturers Noubar Afeyan, Howard Anderson, and Bill Aulet, successful entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. In addition to these four required courses, E&I students select five Electives in Entrepreneurship & Innovation subjects during the two years of the MBA Program, including at least three real-world team projects at the product, firm, and start-up levels, including (but with no academic credit!) the MIT $100K, the “granddaddy of business plan competitions.”
E&I Track leadership anticipates graduates will be particularly successful in the following career paths:
Creating new enterprises while at MIT or soon after, with MIT Sloan colleagues and MIT graduate students in science and technology who were teammates in project-oriented classes and the $100K.
Using their advanced entrepreneurial skills and knowledge in growing entrepreneurial firms in the U.S. or abroad, possibly with companies that were participants in the 15.399 Entrepreneurship Lab (E-Lab) or 15.389 Global Entrepreneurship Lab (G-Lab) subjects.
Maturing their managerial capabilities by gaining deeper industry or functional experiences to develop perspectives for later business creation opportunities.
Those who are seriously considering the E&I Track should recognize that it brings like-minded entrepreneurial students together very early in the process to meet, integrate and learn about entrepreneurship and especially about the unique entrepreneurial ecosystem at MIT. What might normally take a few semesters to understand is significantly condensed into the Fall, maximizing your ability to jump in. The dinner sessions and Valley trip are a lot of work, and the cohort interaction is pretty intense. The track is targeted for people who are coming to MIT Sloan because they are already fairly dedicated to entrepreneurship. The payoff for the extra work, the intense track curriculum requirements, and the fewer options for elective choice are that you will get a jump start on an entrepreneurial life. At the same time, you are part of the overall MIT Sloan MBA Program and can achieve a well-rounded general management education whether in E&I or not.
But the track is clearly not for everyone. Even those interested in but perhaps lukewarm about entrepreneurship might be better off picking and choosing from the extraordinary array of entrepreneurship classes, clubs and student activities. By not choosing to apply to E&I you are not limiting yourself from becoming a part of the entrepreneurial network and learning opportunities.
MIT Entrepreneurship Center, One Amherst Street, E40-196, Cambridge, MA 02142 Tel: +1-617-253-8653, Fax: +1-617-253-8633, Email: ecenter@mit.edu
