AI for Impact: Venture studio, MIT class

Overview

Join our AI for Impact: Venture Studio (MAS644 Spring'22) class. This course will focus on opportunities in the broad sectors of climate change, health, mobility and behavior change with data and AI centric technologies such as Web3, privacy-tech, geospatial analysis and blockchain which can enable or accelerate major positive impact throughout the world. This semester’s course will be structured as a “Venture Studio” with mentors and engagement with VCs, CEOs and Academics.

Given the overwhelming interest and our limited capacity (due to room size and COVID restrictions) this course will have a two-step selection process: (1) Questionnaire, and (2) finishing the Online AI blockchain course. Please respond to the questionnaire. If you are selected after Step 1, you will be expected to finish Step 2 and upload the snapshot that you’ve finished the course. Stage 1: Questionnaire (Link 1) and Stage 2: Finish online AI/Blockchain course (Link 2) (If you have finished a degree course or have a professional background in these areas, you do not need to finish the online course). Please join the Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1269120520232017/) and post your questions there. Also, please sign up for future updates and share them with your colleagues and on your mailing lists.

Background

This long running course has led to many spinoffs including Dimagi, Cogito, Prosperia, Ginger, Sanergy, and nonprofit PathCheck Foundation.

Our previous class links: Fall'21: AI for Impact ~ Building Global Ventures Solving Societal-Scale Problems, Spring'21: AI for Impact, Fall'20: Global Ventures ~ Data and AI for Resilience after COVID19, and Spring'20: AI for Impact ~ Towards Solving Societal-Scale Problems via Media Ventures. All other previous AI for Impact/Global Ventures class links can be found here: Fall Term and Spring Term.

Our recent MIT News coverage on "AI for Impact" (MAS.66) entrepreneurship class meeting two decades ago under the course name Development Ventures that has nurtured multiple thriving businesses can be found here: MIT News: "AI for Impact" lives up to its name.

Instructors

Ramesh Raskar

MIT Media Lab

Joost Paul Bonsen

MIT Media Lab

Vivek Sharma

MIT Media Lab

Ryan Chin

MIT

Ramiro Almeida

MIT

Speakers & Mentors

Alex 'Sandy' Pentland

MIT Media Lab

Vinod Khosla

Khosla Ventures

Paul English

Boston Venture Studio

Jason Pontin

DCVC

Reed Sturtevant

The Engine

Bilal Zuberi

Lux Capital

Steve Jurvetson

Future Ventures

Calvin Chin

E14 Fund

Eric Chen

OVO Fund

Michal Gilon-Yanai

Two Lanterns VC

Jinhua Zhao

MIT City and Transportation Planning

Daniela Rus

CSAIL, MIT

Habib Haddad

E14 Fund

Neha Narula

Digital Currency Initiative

Mohammad (Mo) Islam

Threshold VC

Riddhiman Das

TripleBlind

Ronnie Martinez

CEAS Investments

Santanu Bhattacharya

Airtel X Labs

Scott Phoenix

Vicarious

Thomas Hardjono

MIT Connection Science

Jeffrey Saviano

EY Global Tax Innovation Leader

David Shrier

Imperial College Business School

Anna Koscielecka

Two Lanterns VC

David Blundin

Link Ventures

John Werner

Link Ventures

Elizabeth Beth Porter

MIT Media Lab

Fadel Adib

MIT Media Lab

John Harthorne

Two Lanterns VC

Lakshminarasimhan Srinivasan

TCS

Satrajit Ghosh

MIT

Daniel Kraft

XPRIZE

Grace Isaford

Lux Capital

Patricia Geli

Harvard

Richard Dulude

Underscore VC

Graham Dodge

PathCheck Foundation

Umar Arshad

Matiria

Susan Garfield

Rob Fisher

Cogo Labs

Stash Pomichter

Oculo AI

Jamie Goldstein

Pillar VC

Parker McKee

Pillar VC

Course Outline

Class Goals:

"Visualize Venture Studio" format for-credit course where instructors seed and stimulate high-impact, high-value projects that are attractive for the best engineering, design, and builder students
Advance "Big Ideas" into MVP-seed-stage commercial consideration

Themes and Technologies:

Themes can include, but are not limited to: Climate Change, Mobility, Health, and Behavior Change
Technologies can include, but are not limited to: Blockchain, Big Data / AI, Computer Vision, Geospatial, and Persuasive Technology

Class Structure:

Studio to focus on 4 projects with 5-8 students per team
Instructors will organize guest speakers to discuss technologies and applications for global impact
Student teams will develop a minimum viable product (MVP) by the end of the term to be critiqued by outside invited reviewers
Instructors will organize a "demo day" and invite Boston, Miami and Bay Area community to engage students

Timeline:

Meet and Greet held at MIT/HARVARD in December
IAP get together (Week of Jan 10th or 17th)
First day of class is Feb 3rd
Mid-term review (Week of March 13th before Spring Break)
Final Class Presentations and “demo day” awards (Week of May 16th)

Support for Students:

Weekly class mentor meetings on Wednesday PM / guest lectures / work sessions
Class visits to local start-ups and technology companies
Data sets
Data and AI scientists from startups for experience
Sessions with startup-coaches

Funding:

Teams will receive milestone based seed funds

Expected Mentors and Speakers:

Profs / Lecturers: Jinhua Zhao, Daniela Rus, Cynthia Breazeal, Hari Balakrishnan, Fadel Adib
CEOs: David Morczinek (AirWorks), Kartik Venkataraman (Akasha Imaging), Shahid Azim (REACT Neuro), Rajeev Surati (Skyline Nav AI Inc), Kuldeep Singh Rajput (Biofourmis), Aditya Khosla (PathAI), Dan Raviv (Lendbuzz)
VCs: John Hawthorne (2Lantern), Eric Chen (OVO Fund), Calvin Chin (E14 Fund), Habib Haddad (E14 Fund), Dave Blundin (Link Ventures), John Werner (Link Ventures), Sven Strohband (Khosla Ventures), Bilal Zuberi (Lux Capital), Jon McNeil (DVx Ventures), Katie Rae (The Engine), Paul English (Boston Venture Studio), Vinod Khosla (Khosla Ventures), Jason Pontin (DCVC), Steve Jurvetson (Future Ventures), Reed Sturtevant (The Engine)