NEW HALF-SEMESTER SEMINAR OFFERING FOR FALL 2011
Title: NextLab Seminar: Entrepreneurial Strategies for Hi-Tech Startups in Emerging Markets
Instructor: Jhonatan Rotberg, Lecturer, MIT Engineering Systems Division
Meeting Time and Room: currently listed for Mondays 6:00-8:00pm at E51-372
Because this is a half-semester course, students and instructor will agree on the time slot based on their existing schedules. Meeting time will be scheduled based on the availability of students wanting to enroll.
First Meeting: Monday, October 24, 2011
Instructor will also be available to see interested students on Wednesday, October 26, and Thursday, October 27, from 5:30-6:30pm at E51-372 on both days.
Subject Description:
Students will collaborate with founders and technical teams of currently incubated startups in emerging markets, to develop their technology and innovation road maps, as well as their strategic alternatives. Through a joint program with Wayra, Latin America’s premier hi-tech incubator (funded by Telefónica), students will select a key role (Chief Strategy Officer, Chief Innovation Officer, or Chief Financial Officer) for a portfolio company, deliver an action plan, and present to top Wayra and Telefónica management. Merit-based funds for IAP internships will be awarded.
Goal & Impact:
This course will offer students the opportunity to apply what they’ve learned at MIT to real-world situations where the stakes are high, time is short, and there is intense pressure to perform. Students will immerse themselves into the founding team of a fledgling venture in a developing country, and learn the challenges of hi-tech innovation in an environment with scarce resources, lacking infrastructure, and underdeveloped entrepreneurial ecosystem. They will also find themselves acting as the bridge between those challenges and MIT’s highly developed entrepreneurial ecosystem, while trying to transfer first world class innovation strategies onto emerging markets. Class content will alternate between lectures and student presentations in which each MIT team will share with the rest of the class the problems faced by its selected startup, and the solutions they’re working on with the local team. Students will also have the opportunity and resources to travel for personally working on their action plan, hands on, during IAP.
NextLab’s Tricentenario Project
This is the pilot for a Latin America-wide relationship NextLab (http://nextlab.mit.edu
) is developing with Wayra, Telefónica’s hi-tech startup incubator (www.wayra.org) and the federal governments of the region. We’re beginning with Mexico, and are actively working with Wayra Mexico, the Mexican Ministry of the Economy (www.se.gob.mx), and the National Science and Technology Council (www.conacyt.gob.mx) to develop a national strategy that includes industry-government and local academia for creating “ecosystems of innovation and entrepreneurship” hosted at technical universities across the country (http://tricentenario.mit.edu). Within the next 12 months, we plan to engage the other 7 Latin American countries in which Wayra has presence, and expect to replicate this model across the region.
Listing and Units: ESD.S22 - 3 units (2 hours/week in class and 4 hours/week for preparation during the half semester).
Open to both graduate and upper class undergraduates; no prerequisites.