In Start6, a new entrepreneurship program for MIT engineering students offered during IAP, participants have received advice from such guest speakers as Paul English, cofounder of Kayak; Mike Evans ’99, MEng ’00, and COO and cofounder of GrubHub; Marina Hatsopoulos ’92, serial entrepreneur, former CEO and director of Z Corporation, and angel investor; and Max Krohn ’08, cofounder of OkCupid. And that was just on the first day.
The three-week workshop, which began Jan. 13, also features visits from Drew Houston ’05, CEO and cofounder of Dropbox; Google vice president Jeremy Wertheimer ’89, former CEO of ITA Software; Nanxi Liu, a 23-year-old who has already founded two successful startups; Rodney Brooks, founder, chairman, and CTO of Rethink Robotics and Panasonic Professor of Robotics (emeritus) at MIT; Ray Stata ’57, cofounder of Analog Devices; and Robert Langer, prolific inventor and entrepreneur and the David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT. In addition, venture capitalists Peter Levine of Andreessen Horowitz and Jamie Goldstein ’89 of North Bridge Venture Partners walked the Start6 students through the various phases of a startup.