Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) wanted more opportunities, resources and spaces to pursue innovative ideas, so the institute gave them what they wanted. They created the MIT Sandbox Innovation Fund Program, which complements Royal Philips’ research collaboration with the institute.

"They would like more integrated curricular programming around entrepreneurship,” Ian A. Waitz, dean of the School of Engineering at MIT, told HCB News. “Our students would like help navigating the rich ecosystem within MIT as well as the network outside MIT.”

The program is open to all undergraduate and graduate students at the institute, and will connect them with educational experiences, mentoring and up to $25,000 in grant funds to assist them in their innovative thinking process.

According to Waitz, there are three main things that the students will have access to:

• Education. Accepted proposals will be accompanied by expected milestones and/or co-curricular requirements that are tailored to the needs of the individual student or team. These will be fulfilled largely by connecting the students with existing programming and resources across MIT.

• Mentorship. All participants will be matched with mentors leveraging the alumni and non-alumni networks in the area. Advanced teams will be able to take advantage of existing strong mentorship programs, such as the MIT Venture Mentoring Service.

• Partners. The education and mentoring will be significantly augmented by an impressive team of participants on the Funding Board. They represent individuals and organizations from around the world and span the range of pathways through which our students and alumni may have an impact: foundations, large companies, small companies, individual entrepreneurs, investors, and government laboratories. They will provide guidance and feedback to the students and make recommendations to the Sandbox Executive Director on which projects to fund and at what level.

The MIT faculty wants to make sure that the students have the appropriate educational foundations, effective mentoring, especially when they are interacting with people who have a financial interest in their ideas, and guidance on conflicts of interest.

They want to help the students achieve an appropriate meta-curricular balance by not adding three new things to their agenda when they are struggling with freshman physics. The faculty also wants to ensure that the external partners interact with the students in a way that matches up with the institute's mission, culture, values and policies.

“Putting education and community building first, Sandbox was designed, and will operate, with all of these considerations in mind,” said Waitz.

Ultimately, the goal is for the program to become like MIT’s University Research Opportunities (UROP), which cultivates and supports research partnerships between MIT undergraduates and faculty.

“We want students to become future entrepreneurs and innovators who are grounded but bullish about taking on grand challenges,” said Waitz. “We want students to feel they can make an impact from day one of their MIT career. But most of all, we want them to become people who use knowledge and innovation to make the world a better place.”

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