The death of George Floyd and the events unfolding across the country have shaken us deeply. We stand with the protesters who are exercising their right to free speech and their desire that everyone hears their message. The peaceful protests are motivated by some of our highest American ideals: equality, justice, and accountability.

Our wish is to inspire hope and be part of the solution, to bring people together in a sustainable fashion that has impact and is meaningful. It starts with empathy. To our Black students and community, we send a heartfelt message: We see you. We hear you. We will work with you to use our voice and platform for positive change.

We believe entrepreneurship can be part of the solution as we all move forward.

What the Trust Center does best is to diligently and obsessively focus on inclusive and principled innovation-driven entrepreneurship. We are formulating an action plan that will start with a series of talks and open dialogue to be announced shortly.

These sessions will be co-led by MIT Senior Lecturer and former Trust Center Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) Donna Levin, currently the Executive Director of Innovation & Entrepreneurship at Worcester Polytechnic Institute; and MIT Executive MBA student Kevin D. Johnson, who is an entrepreneur and President & CEO of Johnson Media Inc., as well as the bestselling author of “The Entrepreneur Mind.”

This will be our first step, but it will not be our last. We will be diligent in making our center as inclusive as possible and make entrepreneurship a force for good by providing hope, pride, and rigor to people’s lives … and to their communities. This is what we have to offer by doing what we do best. We look forward to your thoughts on how we can help.

On June 11, the Trust Center held an online forum called “Now What?” and invited the community to discuss the sustained actions that the center can take to ensure racial equality. This is a first step and this page and statement will be updated as more plans are put into action.

Learn more here or watch the forum below. To add your voice to this conversation, please email nowwhat@mit.edu