On Friday, September 9th, 17 teams of MIT students, including MBA students from MIT Sloan School of Management, will have a chance to make a lasting impact on the startup community when they present their pitches for MIT Demo Day.
Eighty-six total entrepreneurs comprise the 17 teams, 74 percent male and 26 percent female. The vast majority of the 86 entrants come from backgrounds in business and engineering, mixed with students involved in science, policy and political science, and design. In total, nine “industry verticals” will be represented by the teams: logistics, energy, analytics, healthcare, fin tech, ag tech, ed tech, media tech and retail.
This year’s teams follow a myriad of successful startups incubated by MIT in recent years. Last year, co-founders Purushotham Botla and Akash Bhatia presented Infinite Analytics, a service that helps better predict the habits of consumers, creating a cleaner and more efficient method of product discovery.
Previous MIT Demo teams also included Accion Systems, which was created by 2015 PhD graduate Natalya Brikner and MIT Space Propulsion Laboratory graduate student Louis Perna. The company refines satellite propulsion systems, which presents companies with millions in potential cost savings. The unique, efficient electric propulsion thruster chips are the size of coins, rather than the ordinary mammoth-sized ones traditionally needed for satellites. The company received $2 million in funding in early 2015.
Other companies that presented at previous MIT Demo days include LiquiGlide, a nonstick coating for containers, and AvaTech, which uses crowdfunding to help mitigate snow and avalanche dangers.
The event marks the end of the 2016 Global Founders’ Skill Accelerator, which has been fostering the growth of startups within MIT’s various academic institutions since 2012. MIT Demo day is part of the institute’s t=0 (“The Time Is Now”) entrepreneurship festival, which runs from Sep. 8th to 16th.
The event officially takes place Friday, September 9th, at the Kresge Auditorium on campus from 4 to 7 p.m.. This year’s keynote speaker will be Dharmesh Shah, SF ’06, co-founder and CTO of inbound marketing giant Hubspot. Registration is free for all those who wish to attend.
