Category Archives: Philanthropy

An Entrepreneurial Partnership: Wellesley College and MIT students team up for delta v 2020

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This week, I had a chance to meet with Wellesley students at an on-campus event and experience their passion for entrepreneurship. They had an excellent reason to be excited. Wellesley has just announced its Batchelor Feld Entrepreneurship Fellowship program.

Amy Batchelor and Brad Feld are known as a power couple in entrepreneurship, venture capital, and philanthropic circles. Amy is a Wellesley grad and Brad is an MIT grad, so creating a partnership between the two schools made sense for them.

The Batchelor Feld Fellowship program

Wellesley students will now have the opportunity to apply to the 2020 MIT delta v summer accelerator program, made possible by a grant from the Batchelor Feld Fellowship program. (Applications close Monday, March 30, 2020 at 8 pm EDT, so if you are interested, start the application process now!)

As a bit of additional background on the program founders, Brad Feld has been an early stage investor and entrepreneur since 1987. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group, he co-founded Mobius Venture Capital and, prior to that, founded Intensity Ventures. Brad is also a co-founder of Techstars. As a long-time venture capitalist who has supported entrepreneurship in the for-profit sector, he also provides his expertise and leadership to non-profits. Brad holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Management Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Amy Batchelor is a writer and community leader who has been deeply involved in non-profit activity for two decades. She is the co-author of the book Startup Life: Surviving and Thriving in a Relationship with an Entrepreneur. Amy graduated from Wellesley College in 1988 with a B.A. in Political Philosophy, and she served on the Board of Trustees at Wellesley College from 2009 to 2015, and 2018 to the present.

Their generosity has enabled Wellesley students to apply to be a Batchelor Feld Entrepreneurship fellow and be full participants in the MIT delta v program in either Cambridge or New York City, alongside the MIT students.

We are excited to have Amy and Brad join our long list of generous donors that have made this program possible, including Jack and Anne Goss who helped get delta v off the ground. It is the generosity of these philanthropists and their support of entrepreneurship that allows us to continue to innovate and elevate our entrepreneurship programs.

What is delta v?

MIT delta v is MIT’s student venture accelerator, providing a capstone educational opportunity for MIT student entrepreneurs that prepares them to hit escape velocity and launch into the real world. The name delta v literally means a change in velocity, and this program has been called the gold standard of academic entrepreneurship accelerators.

From June to early September, teams work on their ventures full-time for the whole summer. Teams will define and refine their target market, conduct primary market research and build knowledge about their customers and users.  They will use the Disciplined Entrepreneurship approach to building their ventures. At the end of the summer, the delta v teams formally present their startups at the culmination of the program on Demo Day.

Here are the basics to consider as students think about the program:

  • All Wellesley students are eligible to apply as individuals or as a team
  • Full participation in delta v in either Cambridge or New York City
  • Up to $20,000 in equity-free funding available
  • $2,000/month per student to cover living expenses in June, July, and August
  • Monthly video mentorship meetings with Amy Batchelor and Brad Feld
  • Join a cohort of peers changing the world through entrepreneurship
  •  Become part strong network of delta v alumni teams with a proven track record

Thanks to our Wellesley team!

I’d like to give a special thank you to Anabel Springer and Carolyn Price at Wellesley College. These two women are co-founders of NRICH Invest, a fintech startup designed to motivate college students to invest and save, and they drove the charge for this program. The pair worked as a part of the MIT Sandbox Innovation Fund’s Fall 2019 cohort, so are familiar with the benefits of the MIT entrepreneurship community, such as mentorship, funding and peer support.

In speaking about the program, Anabel Springer said, “We are ecstatic that this opportunity will provide a way for Wellesley students to engage with entrepreneurship and the larger startup community. Cheers to growing this community and supporting more women and nonbinary student founding teams. Let’s celebrate this moment for entrepreneurship!”

Carolyn Price added, “The fellowship program is an unparalleled opportunity for Wellesley student entrepreneurs to learn and create within Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s entrepreneurship accelerator program, delta v.”

In addition, Celine Christory, head of WeStart, and Tarushi Nigam Sinha, president of Wellesley Women in Business (WWIB) also supported us with this program.

Application, Deadline and Planning for Summer

As a reminder, applications are due at 8:00 pm EDT on Monday, March 30th. You can apply at: https://bit.ly/deltav-wellesley 

We hope to welcome several Batchelor Feld Entrepreneurship Fellows to delta v this summer! For any questions, please email mtc-deltav20@mit.edu or visit deltav.mit.edu.

As we respond to the COVID-19 outbreak and make every effort to keep our students, faculty and staff healthy, both MIT and Wellesley are conducting classes virtually for the remainder of the Spring 2020 semester.

Our physical space at the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship is currently closed, but we have committed to making delta v a reality this year and are still exploring different formats if they are needed. We will keep our applicants and the Entrepreneurship community updated.

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Giving Thanks for the Essence of Entrepreneurship

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Recently, I spent time in Zurich, Munich and Milan meeting with MIT alumni, in the hopes of gaining philanthropic support for the programs run by the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship. As I talked with our alumni in these cities, it made me think of the Entrepreneurial Philanthropy practice put forward by lifelong entrepreneur and philanthropist, Naveen Jain. His promise is that philanthropy is at its best when it is founded on entrepreneurial zest and agility.

Naveen Jain states in a Huffington Post article, “True philanthropy requires a disruptive mindset, innovative thinking, and philosophy driven by entrepreneurial insights and creative opportunities. To disrupt the status quo, drive philanthropy at tremendous scale, and develop long-term economic vitality through giving, we must apply the same models for success in our philanthropic endeavors as we do in business.” I could not agree more.

MIT students are fortunate because they are encouraged to work on problems, projects, and ventures that will positively impact the world. During their journey, they are provided support through tailored classes, mentorship, access to Makerspaces, extracurricular programming, and competitions that offer opportunities for the application of learning and assessments. MIT alumni play a significant role in student support whether it is through mentoring, episodic coaching, programmatic support, introductions, or financial support.

Martin trust centerThe Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship continuously finds new ways to encourage, advise, and champion aspiring entrepreneurs as they take new ventures from idea to reality. The Center’s goals are high, as are its needs; it provides the most innovative opportunities for learning and expands MIT’s global entrepreneurship ecosystem, but it depends on the support of philanthropic partners.

However, as I visited these cities, I had to ask myself – how do you raise funds to sustain entrepreneurship programs in a global environment that does not embrace it as a serious area of study, or in cultures where education is not necessarily the place you would direct your philanthropic funds, or where risk is not rewarded? Although entrepreneurship is part of our culture of innovation here in the States, it is viewed through a different lens in different cultures, as I learned in the Nordics earlier this year.

MIT alums think broadly. The people with whom I spoke on this trip are thinking about how to attract talent, innovate companies, inspire creativity – and they want out-of-the-box ideas for their communities. We had some spirited debates during our discussions as to the benefits of entrepreneurship to their particular ecosystems. The most common misconception was that entrepreneurship is about embracing repeated failure. However, I would argue that at the Trust Center, we try to mentor and guide students so that they are not repeating the failure of others. Our measure of success is that the student learns the skills to start their own businesses and that they self-identify as entrepreneurs. This lets them take risks while they’re here – ahead of the VC stage.

When I started in business out of college, it was a different time. Companies like Honeywell, IBM, HP, etc. all had training programs that cross-trained new graduates. That experience is not as prevalent today, and startups are a great way to get hands-on experience across multiple disciplines. As my expertise moved from engineering to manufacturing to service to sales operations to logistics to senior leadership etc. there mitsealwere always a willing set of mentors who helped me at critical points – for this, I am very thankful. At MIT, we teach a Disciplined Entrepreneurship approach – an approach I have seen work in practice. We have over 60 courses that provide the MIT “mens et manus” approach of mind and hand. Like my apprentice programs years ago, MIT offers hands-on programming to help students understand what working in a new business venture is like and teaches skills of finance, legal, marketing, sales, etc. with industry experience in biotech, healthcare, energy, fin-tech, and other industries.

For many of the alumni, these programs did not exist when they were at MIT. However, in speaking with them, they are confident in the educational and hands-on experiences that are available now to MIT students. Several alums said they would love to go back and be a student now. (Wouldn’t we all!?) Although the world is a different place now than even five years ago, the Trust Center keeps abreast of these changes as evidenced by the success of our MIT delta v teams. Our students are the pulse of change in the world.

Supporting an institution like MIT – and centers such as the Martin Trust Center that provide entrepreneurial programming – creates a workforce that has cross-disciplinary experience.

Demand for delta v has grown, while our budget has not increased for the program. We need funds to support these deserving student teams. As our success becomes public, so does the demand for our product, and increased resources enable us to teach others to become entrepreneurs wherever they are located. We cannot do it without a community and the philanthropy that will plant the seeds, so our students can positively impact the world.