We are proud to announce that as of today, November 22nd at 6pm, the MIT Entrepreneurship Center is now known as the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, in honor of alumnus Martin Trust (SM '58), whose Trust Family Foundation gave a generous $10 million donation to MIT.

 

Located in the Muckley Building at One Amherst Street -- the intersection of MIT's Sloan School of Management and School of Engineering -- the newly renovated center is positioned to reach new heights in its service of MIT students interested in innovation-based entrepreneurship.

 

Mr. Trust said of us: "MIT is rich in people who have ideas and who are willing to take the risk of starting a business. My hope is that the Center becomes a beacon for those young people, and a place where students can learn from others who have done entrepreneurial work and have been successful at taking an idea and turning it into a business."

 

Mr. Trust founded two companies, including Mast Industries in 1970, which merged with The Limited Stores (now Limited Brands) in 1978.

 

MIT President Susan Hockfield and MIT Sloan Dean David Schmittlein shared with us their enthusiasm for the new center:

 

"Invention, innovation, and entrepreneurship are the oxygen of a thriving economy," President Hockfield said. "By making possible this marvelous new space, Martin Trust and his family are opening new doors of possibility and growth for MIT's aspiring entrepreneurs. The Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship will give them the skills and confidence to launch, lead and scale up the new enterprises our economy urgently needs."

 

Dean Schmittlein, the John C Head III Dean of MIT Sloan, called us "the heart and home of entrepreneurship" at MIT. "The Martin Trust Center gives us the people, the programs, and the place where our alumni, faculty, and students can invent the future."

 

As always, we continue to support all five schools at MIT. Whether you are a student in the School of Architecture and Planning; the School of Engineering; the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences; the School of Science; or the Sloan School of Management, the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship is your place for building entrepreneurial capacity.

 

"Now we have a new beginning in the Martin Trust Center," said Martin Trust Center chair and founder Professor Edward Roberts. "It poses a new challenge: what do we do for encores? I believe the future holds the possibility of dramatic increases of what we have accomplished thus far."

 

Thanksgiving week is the perfect time to express our sincere gratitude for Mr. Trust's continued support of MIT and its entrepreneurial activities, and we can think of no better way to recognize his monetary contributions than our new name -- the Martin (1958) Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship.