Outside the classroom, students create future businesses
At a recent meeting of the 23-year-old MIT Entrepreneurs Club, one recent graduate of the Sloan School of Management described his plans for a business — one based on his solution to a little-recognized problem that currently costs airlines $10 billion a year. Another alumnus, an engineer who recently retired after a career in the telecom business, talked about his patented approach to fighting wildfires in remote locations. A new MIT graduate student, who just earned his undergraduate degree from the Institute this spring, spoke of three different startup businesses he’s currently cultivating in his spare time — one of which he co-founded during his freshman year at the Institute. In short, just another typical week at the E-Club.The E-Club is just one of a variety of organizations at MIT dedicated to fostering new businesses based on ideas that emerge from classrooms, labs and late-night brainstorming sessions. And that’s on...