Senior Lecturer Phil Budden writes for Fortune about how the Greek financial crisis also presents an opportunity. Budden recommends that Greece, “shift its focus away from its macroeconomic problems and toward the task of creating an innovation ecosystem.”
Nihdi Subbaraman reports for BetaBoston on the legal clinics MIT and BU have started providing to student entrepreneurs. “The Entrepreneurship and Intellectual Property Clinic is intended to serve as a place where startup founders can seek basic advice about how to register their company or how to distribute ownership to multiple founders,” writes Subbaraman.
MIT and BU have joined forces to offer students entrepreneurs legal advice, the Associated Press reports. "It's almost like a godsend," says MIT sophomore Isaiah Udotong, who is starting his own company. "We were looking for legal advice and wondering how we were going to make sure everything is legitimate."
Nidhi Subbaraman writes for BetaBoston about Innovation Teams (“iTeams”), an MIT program that helps students commercialize products out of lab technologies. “When it comes to emerging tech — the brand-new stuff that’s published in journals… sometimes the path to market isn’t what the researchers envisioned when they built it. iTeams wants to give the hard stuff a chance,” explains Subbaraman.
During a visit to MIT, Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker stressed the need for government investment in research, reports Jeff Engels for Xconomy. “Our investment in R&D in this country is flat since, I think, 1980. It’s actually quite concerning at a time when the rest of the world, as you said, is not standing still,” said Pritzker.
BostInno reporter Dylan Martin writes about how MIT and BU have formed a new partnership to provide students with a source of legal advice on technology and business issues. “BU law students will provide free legal advice and representation to MIT and BU students who either want to start their own business or are already involved with a startup.”
In a Financial Times article about the need for investment in sanitation services, Sarah Murray highlights Sanergy, an MIT spinoff that franchises toilets to local micro entrepreneurs. Murray writes that, “Sanergy’s model provides work and improves sanitation.”
MIT and BU are teaming up on a new effort to provide legal clinics for students needing assistance with startups or technology projects, reports Karen Sloan for The National Law Journal. While entrepreneurship clinics are a growing trend at law schools, writes Sloan, “the cross-university component of MIT and Boston Law’s new clinic is unusual."
MIT and Boston University are joining forces to provide law clinics for student entrepreneurs looking for legal advice, reports Katherine Nazemi for The Tech. “There’s opportunity for students to drop in and say ‘I don’t know if I need help or not, but this is what I’m doing, what do you think?’” explains Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart.
Daily Free Press reporters Keela Sweeney and Christy Osler write that MIT and BU are collaborating on a new program to assist students with legal issues related to business and innovation. “This is an important step forward in our efforts to support all MIT students as they imagine, innovate and create,” says MIT Chancellor Cynthia Barnhart.
A new study co-authored by Prof. Xavier Giroud finds that startups that receive more attention from their investors tend to be more innovative, reports Eilene Zimmerman for Forbes. The researchers found that those startups that investors could reach via a direct flight “produced higher quality innovation and were more likely to go public or be acquired.”
Prof. Hugh Herr speaks about his work developing bionic limbs on Popular Science’s Futuropolis podcast. When asked about what sort of capabilities bionics may be able to give humans in the future, Herr explains his view that, “If something is possible given physical law, given the laws of nature, then I think ultimately humans will explore it.”
In an article for The New York Times, Phyllis Korkki writes about a new study co-authored by Prof. Christian Catalini that examines how free time impacts innovation. The researchers found innovation “requires time to carry out execution-oriented tasks that are not particularly creative but still necessary to transform an idea into a product.”
BetaBoston reporter Curt Woodward writes about RapidSOS, a startup founded by graduates from MIT and Harvard that is aimed at improving 911 service. “RapidSOS’ system is designed to be a digital communications middleman that can harvest key information from an app user’s smartphone and route it into a 911 dispatcher’s system,” Woodward explains.
Catherine Pearson writes for The Huffington Post about the Gala Pump, a compression breast pump designed by Kohana Inc. at MIT’s “make the breast pump not suck” hackathon: “Kohana has run a small clinical trial with 30 moms and says the majority of those women preferred The Gala to their vacuum pumps.”