The MIT Postdoctoral Association and the MIT Venture Mentoring Service are co-sponsoring an Entrepreneurship Programs and Resource Workshop for all MIT postdocs on-campus. While MIT is full of entrepreneurship resources and has made recent efforts to strengthen its innovation ecosystem, postdocs are often overwhelmed with the sheer number of initiatives, programs, and centers on campus and sometimes do not know which of these are available to them. The aim of the Entrepreneurship Programs and Resources Workshop is to inform postdocs and to bring all of these resources to them in one location.
Agenda
- 4:00 PM Opening Remarks: Vincent Chan, PhD, President, MIT Postdoctoral Association
- Postdoc Involvement in Entrepreneurship: Dana Bresee Keeth, MA, Director, Postdoctoral Services
- 4:10 PM Entrepreneurship Experiences from an MIT Alumnus
- Speaker: David Knezivic, PhD, Co-Founder and CTO, Akeselos
- 4:30 Entrepreneurship Resources at MIT (see speaker list below)
- 5:30 Resource Tables & Networking Reception
Speaker Bios:
David Knezevic
PhD Co-Founder and CTO, Akselos
Dr. Knezevic is the CTO of Akselos. In this role, he has coordinated the delivery of simulation frameworks to the Power Systems and Mining industries. He holds a Ph.D. from Oxford (Rhodes scholar) and was a post-doc at MIT where he worked on Akselos' core technology. He was a Lecturer at Harvard University for three years before joining Akselos full time.
Roman Lubynsky, PhD
Senior Venture Advisor, MIT Venture Mentoring Service
Dr. Roman Lubynsky has been a senior staff member at the MIT Venture Mentoring Service (VMS) since 2002. He has worked with hundreds of faculty, students and alumni to help advance their ideas. Roman has over 30 years of experience in startups and with growing technology companies. He received his PhD in management from the University of Maryland University College and his MS in management of technology from MIT.
Leon Sandler, MBA
Executive Director, MIT Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation
Leon Sandler wears many hats at the Deshpande Center: He is responsible for guiding the center’s strategic direction, ensuring successful execution of its mission, and managing day-to-day operations. Leon has held senior positions at Boston Consulting Group, Eastman Kodak, Texas Instruments and Digital Equipment Corporation. He also founded the consulting firm Monmouth Group.
Edward Ahn, PhD
Chairman of the Board of Directors, MIT Enterprise Forum
Edward is the Vice-Chairman of the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge and Scientific Advisory Board Member of the Center of Innovation for Nanobiotechnology. He is also a senior lecturer at the School of Engineering and Applied Science of Harvard University. While at MIT, Edward won the Grand Prize in the MIT $50K Business Plan Competition. He founded Angstrom Medica and served as Chief Technology Officer to Chief Executive Office and Board Member.
Kyle Judah, MBA
Program Director and EIR, Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship
Kyle Judah is a two time EdTech entrepreneur with a passion for solving big problems affecting schools and student learning. He was the co-founder and CEO at RecoVend and BetaMatch. He is currently a remote Entrepreneur in Residence with 4.0 Schools, an education innovation lab that identifies and nurtures ideas that have the potential to have a large scale impact on the education industry.
Yoel Fink, PhD
Professor and Director , MIT Translational Fellows Program
Yoel Fink is a Professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at MIT and Director of the Research Laboratory of Electronics (RLE). Professor Fink’s research group has pioneered the field of multimaterial multifunctional fibers. He won the Hershel Rich Technion Innovation Competition (1994) and Tech Review Award for 100 Top Young Innovators (1999). Professor Fink is a co-founder of OmniGuide Inc. (2000) and served as its CEO and Board Member until 2014.
Steve Haraguchi, MBA
Director of Program Design and Implementation, MIT IMPACT Program
Steve Haraguchi is the Director, Program Design & Implementation for the MIT Innovation Initiative. In this role he works to connect internal and external stakeholders, develop strategy and pilot new programs to meet the Initiative’s goal of enhancing innovation capabilities, communities and infrastructure on campus and around the world. He holds a BS in Operations Research from Columbia University and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Attending Clubs and Organizations:
| MIT Entrepreneurs Club
| MIT Ventureships Club
| MIT Biotech Club
| MIT Hacking Medicine
