AI for Impact ~ Spring 2020 @ MIT Media Lab

Together with colleagues Professors Alex "Sandy" Pentland and Ramesh Raskar, I'm co-teaching the AI for Impact seminar this Spring 2020 every Monday afternoon starting Feb 3rd from 2:30-4:30a in E14-633, the penthouse classroom on top of the MIT Media Lab! Our class goal is to bring computational, analytics, and AI techniques to bear on solving problems in the high impact realms of health & wellness, cities & sustainability, education & content, finance & commerce, and civics & governance across scales of action from each of us as individuals to embracing all of humanity, in both developed and emerging markets alike. We want to help students identify top AI opportunities for impact and help make progress towards building prototypes, planning action ventures, and/or better understanding the emerging technology and impact trendscape.

Also known as "Media Ventures" and formerly also known as "Imaging Ventures", “AI Ventures”, and "Digital Anthropology", this “AI for Impact” class seeks answers to the question: If you could make almost anything, what's actually most worth making, i.e. what problems are most worth picking? We believe starting with the right problem is 90% of what makes for great projects and ultimately epic, worthy solutions.

MIT Nuts & Bolts of New Ventures ~ IAP Jan 2020

Nuts Logo

On Tuesday night, 21 January 2020, Joe Hadzima and I kick off the latest incarnation -- the 31st year (!!) -- of our MIT Nuts & Bolts of New Ventures course over the MIT Independent Activities Period (IAP 2020). Joe starts with the essence of business planning as a process of iterative imagination and special guest speaker Bob Jones shares how to present venture essentials. My primary topic is Team & Organizational issues, our special guest speakers (mostly MIT alums, all entrepreneurs) cover the essentials everyone ought to know about new venturing, including how to identify customers, pitch a concept, raise money, model financials, deal with legalities, negotiate with people, and holistically integrate this all together.

Sessions are evenings over the next two weeks Tue, Wed, and Thurs nights 1/21-1/30 from 6-9p in 10-250 -- i.e. in our prime MIT lecture hall under the iconic Great Dome. Folks can choose whether to attend all sessions, plus doing the (useful) written homework assignment, and registering For Credit (3 Units, Pass/Fail for 15.393 online via Websis) or to come for any (or all) nights and simply participate as a Listener. All MIT affiliates and colleagues -- including students, faculty, staff, post-docs, alums, spouses, relatives, and friends -- are welcome on a space-available basis with priority for registered full-time undergrad and grad students. We also continue to welcome students from our sister schools in Boston-metro (e.g. Wellesley, Harvard, BU, Tufts, etc) as well as Members of the MIT Enterprise Forum network. Those interested, please simply join us at 6pm in our MIT 10-250 classroom.

MIT Global Ventures ~ Emergent Newcos 2019!

Great to see all 29 final projects in our MIT Global+Development Ventures class this past Fall 2019, a joint-offering between MIT D-Lab, MIT Sloan School of Management, and MIT Media Arts & Sciences in the School of Architecture & Planning! My MIT Media Lab co-instructors Alex "Sandy" Pentland, Ramesh Raskar, and I are all keen to see where our students will take their projects next. Many have received MIT Sandbox support, others are Legatum Fellows or have Legatum Voyager grants over IAP/January 2020, most are entering MIT IDEAS and/or MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition Accelerate & Launch phases, and a few are engaging up-river in Harvard's President Innovation Challenge! And, of course, there's many more things to do beyond grant-seeking and contests, most especially actually founding, financing, and building these newcos! Here they are alphabetically...

1. 1Room ~ Kenyan Affordable Personalized Learning System
2. AiBaobao ~ Chinese Active Parenting Solutions
3. Aqua ~ Argentinian Digital Banking
4. AZEKI ~ African Designer Brand & Operational Solutions
5. Co.Mig ~ Venezuelan Migrant Integration & Employment
6. CON-DE ~ Architectural Material Reuse Solutions
7. Corpus Law ~ Digital Accessible Legal Info
8. CorruptionMonitor ~ Citizen Reporting Solutions
9. Experimental Fund ~ Fast Harvard Student Project Funding
10. Green Source ~ African Local Sustainble Fair Palm Oil 
11. GRIA ~ African Snack Foods
12. IT VC for EAC ~ East African ICT Investment Fund
13. KAAN ~ Latam Retired Expat Co-Living Communities
14. Kinderoo ~ Affordable Distributed Day Care Services
15. mBody ~ Pakistani Girls Body Literacy
16. Medical Records ~ Ownership & Transportability
17. Molo ~ Cote d'Ivoire Pay-as-you-go LPG
18. MYLA ~ Make Your Life Awesome Virtual Personal Assistant
19. Mylea ~ Sustainable Fashion Materials
20. OneBeat ~ Social Exercise Engagement
21. Pandar ~ African Smallholder Farmer Informatics
22. RateMonk ~ Indian Online Academic Ratings & Informatics
23. Red Feather ~ Canadian Indigenous Certification & Products
24. RISE ~ Colombian Rural Innovations for Solidarity Economies
25. Salut ~ Brazilian Integrated Healthcare Services 
26. TABIGO ~ Chinese Social Travel Planner
27. Text4Health ~ Anonymous Sexual Health Services
28. TOWARDS ~ Presentation Speech & Performance Coaching
29. Wala ~ Ghanaian Blood Supply Solutions

Global Ventures ~ Inclusive Prosperity ~ Fall 2019

My MIT Media Lab colleagues Alex (Sandy) Pentland, Ramesh Raskar and I -- together with instructor colleagues Beth Porter, David Shrier, Indu Kodukula, Thomas Hardjono, and Nathan Eagle -- are co-hosting an upgraded incarnation of our Global Ventures class this Fall 2019 at the Media Lab top-floor E14-633 starting Thursday afternoon September 5th from 10am-12noon.

Also known as Development Ventures, this class has been offered since 2001 and is part of the D-Lab family. GV seeks scalable solutions & exponential innovations for emerging markets and underserved communities anywhere. This class is about planning ventures which deploy solutions reaching as many people as possible with positive impact and maximizing progress towards inclusive prosperity. The most promising class projects have formed the basis for real ventures, including such alumcos as MAX, Sanergy, Wecyclers, Jamii, PEN, WAY, MDaaS, and dozens more. Those interested are invited to join us at our kickoff class session on 9/5/2019!

Revolutionary Ventures ~ Bold Ideas ~ Fall 2019

My MIT Media Lab colleagues Ed Boyden, Joe Jacobson and I are co-hosting the latest version of our Revolutionary Ventures class this Fall 2019 in a new bigger classroom at the Media Lab -- top-floor E14-633 -- starting Thursday afternoon September 5th from 2-4pm.

This offering is the closest MIT comes to having an "Institute-Wide Elective" and is listed in four of our five Schools. Revolutionary Ventures is a project-oriented Action Lab course on envisioning and building ideas and organizations to initiate and/or accelerate engineering revolutions. The overall course focuses on emerging technology domains -- such as synthetic biology, materials, energy, neurotechnology, imaging, AI / machine learning, gerontechnology, and bio-and-nano fabrication -- and their commercialization. The most promising class projects have formed the basis for real ventures, including such alumcos as Elektra, Hive, C16 Bio, Leeruniek, BioBright, and more. Those interested are invited to join us at our kickoff class session on 9/5/2019!

AI for Impact ~ Spring'19 @ MIT Media Lab...

Together with colleague Ramesh Raskar, I'm co-teaching the AI for Impact seminar this Spring 2019 every Mon afternoon starting Feb 11th from 2:30-4:30a in E15-341, the heart of the MIT Media Lab! Our goal is to bring computational, analytics, and AI techniques to bear on solving problems in the high impact realms of health & wellness, cities & sustainability, across scales of action from each of us as individuals to embracing all of humanity, in both developed and emerging markets alike, all broadly understood.  We want to help students identify top AI opportunities for impact and help make progress towards building prototypes, planning action ventures, and/or better understanding the emerging technology and impact trendscape.  Formerly known as "Imaging Ventures" or “AI Ventures”, this “AI for Impact” class seeks answers to the question:  If you could make almost anything, what's actually most worth making, i.e. what problems are most worth picking?  We believe starting with the right problem is 90% of what makes for great projects and ultimately epic, worthy solutions.

MIT Media Ventures ~ Spring 2018 Projects!

Professors Alex "Sandy" Pentland, Cynthia Breazeal, and I together

with colleague instructors David Shrier, Beth Porter, Steve Derezinski, and Thomas Hardjono were pleased to have ~75 students in our MIT Media Lab & MIT Sloan cross-listed Media Ventures class this past Spring 2018 semester working on nearly three dozen projects! These projects are a combination of new venture proposals pursuing entrepreneurial concepts and innovation roadmaps exploring a larger landscape of emerging technology possibilities. Just to give you a taste for the wide range of topics covered, here they are in alphabetical order...

• Acciyo ~ Assistive AI for Active News Readers
• Aion Therapeutics ~ Bio-derived Neuroceuticals  
• Alpaca ~ Scaling Online Marketplaces  
• Bias Detection ~ AI/ML for Fallacy Detection 
• Bienvendido ~ Home Purchase Fund for Mexico 
• Blockchain + Healthcare ~ Traceablity & Authentication 
• Blockchain x Music ~ Fast, Inclusive, Artist-Friendly 
• Climate Media Engine ~ Provocative Short Videos 
• Digital Health ~ Proactive Care Innovation Roadmap 
• Equalizr ~ Speech Pattern Analysis & Coaching 
• EthAnalytics ~ Blockchain Venture Impact Metrics 
• FundONE ~ Democratizing Political Fundraising 
• Hustle ~ Changing Contractor Career Options 
• Levio ~ Home Swapping for LGTBQ Travelers 
• Markets for Data ~ Vertical & Horizontal Roadmap 
• Mindful VR ~ Overcoming Test Anxiety, Boosting Scores 
• Mobile Digital ID ~ Authentication & Login Tech 
• Nutrition Tracking ~ Consumer Innovation Roadmap 
• Oncotector ~ Surgical Cancer Detector 
• Personal Media Venture ~ MIT Tech x Business Examples  
• Project Tokenize ~ Alternatives to Debt & Equity 
• R&D Megafunds ~ Financial Instruments for Good 
• Recipere ~ New Age Clinical Research Portal 
• Restaurants & Tech ~ For Kitchens, Tables, & Beyond 
• Smart Devices for the Disabled ~ Innovation Roadmap 
• Space Economy ~ Astropreneurship Roadmap 
• Straight Line Capital ~ Alt Funding Platform 
• Tech to Fight Sex Trafficking ~ Tools Roadmap 
• Told Ya! ~ Peer-to-Peer Casino-less Betting  
• Trustee ~ Digital ID for Consumer Use 
• Waffle ~ Re-imagining Insurance Holistically 
• Wakanda Institute of Technology ~ New MIT Conference 
• Zilper ~ Trenchless Construction for Piping 
• Zippi ~ Inclusive Finance in Brazil

MIT New Ventures ~ A Nuts & Bolts NanoMBA...

We've been hosting our MIT January/IAP 2018 class on the Nuts & Bolts of New Ventures for the past two weeks! Tonight's session with one of my favorite people, Yonald Chery, holistically integrates learnings via our live case study, MIMIO (f.k.a. Virtual Ink). Highly recommended!

MIT Classes Fall 2017 ~ Transformative Ventures, Future Explorations, & Creative Action!

I'm excited to be co-teaching a handful of class offerings at MIT this Fall 2017! Please spread the word to those who you think might find any or all of these compelling! All motivated students are urged to attend the First Class session. Details below and at the class sites...

• Development Ventures ~ Thu 10a-12n E14-633 ~ 15.375/EC.731/MAS.665 ~ http://developmentventures.org ~ Towards the entrepreneurial deployment of emerging market innovations solving problems faced by at least a Billion people worldwide in developing countries and underserved communities. First Class: Thu 9/7 
• Revolutionary Ventures ~ Thu 2-4p E15-341 ~ 9.455/15.128/20.454/MAS.883 ~ http://revolutionaryventures.org ~ Exploring personal entrepreneurial strategies and envisioning and building transformative ideas and organizations to initiate and/or accelerate bold engineering revolutions. Email reven@media.mit.edu ASAP if interested. First Class: Thu 9/7 
• Future Law (H1) ~ Tue 1-2:30p E14-633 ~ MAS.s71 ~ http://mitfuturelaw.org ~ New Media & AI disrupts Legal Services plus New Laws for Emerging Technologies, e.g. spectrum, space, autonomous driving, etc. First Class: Tue 9/12 (First Half Semester offering) 
• Future Commerce (H2) ~ Tue 1-2:30p E14-633 ~ MAS.s72 ~ http://mitfuturecommerce.org ~ New Media including Mobiles, Crypto, AI, Blockchain meets Markets & Finance, Transactions & Security. First Class: Tue 10/31 (Second Half Semester offering) 
• Understanding MIT ~ Tue 4-6p 9-450A ~ 11.s941 ~ http://understandingmit.org ~ Special seminar on the challenges of designing and building research universities and crafting conditions for a supportive, vibrant, and entrepreneurial learning community. First Class: Tue 9/12 
• Independent Studies & UROPs ~ On Invention, Entrepreneurship, VCPE, etc 

For More Info, email Joost Bonsen ~ http://alum.mit.edu/www/jpbonsen

MIT Media Ventures ~ Thurs 10a-12n Spring '17

UPDATE: Due to MIT's snow closing, our kickoff class was Thursday morning 10a-12n February 16th, 2017 in Media Lab E14-633.

Our MIT Media Ventures ~ Media Lab Entrepreneurship & Digital Innovations class surveys a broad landscape of emerging media technologies interwoven with live- and historic-cases of intre- and entrepreneurship-based on new media ideas, culminating in a term project. The core goal of this Action Lab offering is for students to gain increased understanding of how emergent media and digital innovations translate into commercial reality and transform society.

We survey case examples of both successful and failed businesses and generally grapple with the difficulties of deploying and diffusing products and as a means of exploring a range of business models and opportunities enabled by emerging Media Lab and related innovations. This year we will be especially emphasizing urban innovations, personal data rights, health, civic engagement, financial service innovations, mobile transactions, and social media generally with special focus on social networks, quantified self and society, AI, robotics, automation, and data analytics. Join us at first class Thursday morning 10a-12n February 9th, 2017 in Media Lab E14-633.

CityScope Kendall ~ Model Innovation District

I'm co-teaching CityScope Kendall Square class this Spring 2017 together with MIT Media Lab colleague Kent Larson and team, starting Wednesday, 8 February at 2pm, as part of our MIT Cities Initiative. Kendall Square is considered by many to be an ideal innovation district -- but it is dysfunctional as a community due to an extreme lack of amenities, housing, cultural venues, and after-work activity. MIT’s selection as the developer for the 14-acre Volpe Center creates one last opportunity to transform the district into a vibrant and creative center for entrepreneurship. Students will explore an evidence-based, data-driven process that makes use of the CityScope augmented reality platform to design, iterate, and reimagine Kendall Square. Join us at first class Wed afternoon 2pm February 8th, 2017 in Media Lab E15-359.

MIT Nuts & Bolts of New Ventures ~ IAP 2017

On Tuesday night, 24 January 2017, Joe Hadzima and I kick off the latest incarnation -- the 28th year (!!) -- of our MIT Nuts & Bolts of New Ventures course over the MIT Independent Activities Period (IAP 2017). Joe starts with the essence of business planning as a process of iterative imagination and special guest speaker Bob Jones shares how to present venture essentials. My primary topic is Team & Organizational issues, our special guest speakers (mostly MIT alums, all entrepreneurs) cover the essentials everyone ought to know about new venturing, including how to identify customers, pitch a concept, raise money, model financials, deal with legalities, negotiate with people, and holistically integrate this all together.

Sessions are evenings over the next two weeks Tue, Wed, and Thurs nights 1/24-2/2 from 6-9p in 10-250 -- i.e. in our prime MIT lecture hall under the iconic Great Dome. Folks can choose whether to attend all sessions, plus doing the (useful) written homework assignment, and registering For Credit (3 Units, Pass/Fail for 15.S21 online via Websis) or to come for any (or all) nights and simply participate as a Listener. All MIT affiliates and colleagues -- including students, faculty, staff, post-docs, alums, spouses, relatives, and friends -- are welcome on a space-available basis with priority for registered full-time undergrad and grad students. We also continue to welcome students from our sister schools in Boston-metro (e.g. Wellesley, Harvard, BU, Tufts, etc) as well as Members of the MIT Enterprise Forum network. Those interested, please simply join us at 6pm in our MIT 10-250 classroom.

Oola Sportswear ~ Active Garb That Covers!

Our entrepreneurial MIT alumna (and former co-lead of MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition) Haya Al Ghanim has just formally launched her Oola Sportswear venture on Indiegogo!

"Elegant, functional and loose-fitting activewear making outdoor sports accessible to more women. Oola is a modesty-inspired line of clothing that will give a segment of women a chance to experience outdoor sports without the burden of layering bulky, non-matching, non-technical clothes. Stylish, loose-fitting, made of sports tech fabrics apparel that can be worn by ladies who prefer more coverage for outdoor activities."

Fall 2016 @ MIT ~ Ventures, Places, Futures!

I'm co-teaching a very cool folio of MIT class offerings this Fall 2016 and hope you'll either consider joining us or spreading the word about particularly relevant offerings to great students and colleagues who you think might appreciate them! These cluster into three big categories: Transformational Ventures, Creative Places, and Emergent Futures. Details below & online...  

• Development Ventures ~ Thu 10a-12n E14-633 ~ 15.375/EC.731/MAS.665 ~ http://developmentventures.org ~ Towards the entrepreneurial deployment of emerging market innovations solving problems faced by at least a Billion people worldwide in developing countries and underserved communities. First class: Thu 9/8  
• Revolutionary Ventures ~ Thu 2-4p E15-341 ~ 9.455/15.128/20.454/MAS.883 ~ http://revolutionaryventures.org ~ Exploring personal entrepreneurial strategies and envisioning and building transformative ideas and organizations to initiate and/or accelerate bold engineering revolutions. Email reven@media.mit.edu ASAP if interested. First class: Thu 9/8  
• Future Commerce (H1) ~ Tue 1-2:30p E14-633 ~ MAS.s71/15.s73 ~ http://mitfuturecommerce.org ~ New Media meets Markets & Finance. First class: Tue 9/13 (Half Semester offering)  
• Future Health (H2) ~ Tue 1-2:30p E14-633 ~ MAS.s72/15.s74 ~ http://mitfuturehealth.org ~ New Media meets Medicine & Wellness. First class: Tue 11/1 (Second Half of semester)  
• Understanding MIT ~ Tue 4-6p 9-450A ~ 11.s941 ~ http://understandingmit.org ~ Special seminar on the challenges of designing and building research universities and crafting conditions for a supportive, vibrant, and entrepreneurial learning community. First class: Tue 9/13  
• Model Cities ~ Wed 2-5p E15-359 ~ MAS.552/4.557 ~ http://mitmodelcities.org ~ Simulating & Visualizing Entrepreneurial, Innovative, & Creative Urban Hotspots. First class: Wed 9/7  
• SciFab 2050 ~ Tue 7-9p E15-359 ~ MAS.s60 ~ http://scifab2050.org/ ~ An informal seminar using Science Fiction, extrapolation, simulation, and imagination to envision what our world might be like in 2050. Email jpbonsen@alum.mit.edu if interested. First session: Tue 9/13

MIT $100K LAUNCH 2016 ~ Great Finalists 2nite!

The MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition LAUNCH Contest Finals are tonight Wed 5/11/2016 with 8 student-team Finalists seeking $100,000 Goldberg Grand Prize!

MIT Media Ventures ~ Thurs 10a-12n Spring '16

Our MIT Media Ventures ~ Media Lab Entrepreneurship & Digital Innovations class surveys a broad landscape of emerging media technologies interwoven with live- and historic-cases of inter- and entrepreneurship-based on new media ideas, culminating in a term project. The core goal of this Action Lab offering is for students to gain increased understanding of how emergent media and digital innovations translate into commercial reality and transform society.

We survey case examples of both successful and failed businesses and generally grapple with the difficulties of deploying and diffusing products and as a means of exploring a range of business models and opportunities enabled by emerging Media Lab and related innovations. This year we will be especially emphasizing urban innovations, personal data rights, public health, financial service innovations, mobile transactions, and social media generally with special focus on social networks, quantified self and society, and "Big Data" analytics. Join us at first class Thursday morning 10a-12n February 4th, 2016 in Media Lab E14-633.

Creative Places ~ On Urban Hot Spots Spring '16

I'm co-teaching Creative Places class this Spring 2016 together with MIT Media Lab colleague Kent Larson and team, starting Wednesday, 3 February at 2pm, as part of our MIT Cities Initiative. We're particularly keen on understanding and enabling innovation, entrepreneurship, and creative vitality in cities. We seek better indices (or rankings or scores) and analyses especially of important but often intangible aspects of the city. Ultimately we aspire to deep understanding of how urban attractiveness can be best achieved through design, zoning, development, and more.  Join us at first class Wed afternoon 2pm February 4th, 2016 in Media Lab E14-633.

CODEGIRL ~ High School Technovation Teams!

Cool new documentary CODEGIRL...

"From rural Moldova to urban Brazil to suburban Massachusetts, CODEGIRL follows teams who dream of holding their own in the world’s fastest-growing industry. The winning team [in the Technovation Challenge] gets $10K to complete and release their app, but every girl discovers something valuable along the way."

Revolutionary Ventures ~ Bold Transformations!

My MIT Media Lab colleagues Ed Boyden, Joe Jacobson, Adam Marblestone, Desiree Dudley and I are co-hosting an upgraded and basically new incarnation of our Neurotech Ventures class -- now called Revolutionary Ventures -- this Fall 2015 at the Media Lab starting Thursday afternoon September 10th from 2-4pm.

While we emphasize a variety of emerging technology domains including neurotechnology, imaging, cryotechnology, gerontechnology, and bio-and-nano fabrication, this course is all about envisioning, planning, and building ventures -- anything ranging from entrepreneurial startups and intrapreneurial product-lines or business units to new research centers or universities, even the creation of new disciplines and entire industries!

Development Ventures ~ Exponential Prosperity!

My MIT colleague Alex (Sandy) Pentland and I are offering our Development Ventures action lab class this Fall 2015 at the Media Lab starting Thursday September 10th from 10a-12noon, with special focus on frugal, DIY, and ultraffordable technologies as well as exponential innovations including mobiles, big data, and analytics. This will be our 15th year!

Every year, we look forward to the latest new venture concepts our students propose -- in domains ranging from Health & Wellness, Energy & Sustainability, Education & Creativity, Commerce & Financial Services, Civic Engagement and beyond -- and we try to help the most motivated teams and promising ideas actually start and thrive! Alumcos since 2001 include FirstMileSolutions/United Villages, blueEnergy, WAY Systems, Dimagi, Howtoons, CellBazaar, Global Cycle Solutions/GCS, Assured Labor/EmpleoListo, ClickDiagnostics/mPower/ClickMedix, Dinube, Sanergy, WoundPump/WiiCare, ESSMART, Wecyclers, Ghonsla, Logistimo, Apportunidades, CrowdSOS/WiseSystems, MoringaConnect, TrueAfrica, MDaaS, MAX, and more. What will blossom this year?