MIT REAP - Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program

I’m here at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the greater Boston area all week as part of the kickoff of MIT REAP - Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program, working with friends from Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii), Edmonton Unlimited, Alberta Technology and Innovation, University of Alberta, Startup TNT, Sprout Fund, Alberta Innovates, and Alberta Enterprise Corporation (AEC). Boston friends, let me know if you’ve got some time!

Thrilled to be spending most of the week at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as the University member of the Edmonton MIT REAP - Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program team, working with other key ecosystem stakeholders including Government, Risk Capitalists, Entrepreneurs, and Corporates to advance the tech ecosystem in Edmonton. What a great opportunity to bring our community together to envision a better future. This program has the potential to catalyze the creation of a number of Innovation Driven Enterprises within our emerging tech ecosystem, which can supercharge entrepreneurship and economic development in our region. Paul Bakhmut, Tim Lynn, Andrew MacIsaac, Christiana Manzocco, Charles Wong, ICD.D, Kristina Milke, Mykola Holovetskyi, Robert Lai, Sean Murphy Stephanie Enders, Tom Viinikka Government of Alberta, Startup TNT, API, Alberta Enterprise Corporation (AEC), Sprout Fund, Moved, Alberta Innovates, Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii) Edmonton Unlimited, University of Alberta https://lnkd.in/gRqDC6wk

We’re thrilled to announce that Edmonton Unlimited’s CEO, Tom Viinikka, is proudly representing our city as part of Edmonton’s team in the prestigious MIT REAP - Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program! MIT REAP is a global initiative designed to unite regions in driving technology and innovation growth. Over the course of the next two years, #TeamEdmonton will work together to strengthen collaboration, create a shared vision, and accelerate economic opportunities for our community. A special thank you to Minister Nate Glubish and the Government of Alberta for championing this initiative! Full release here: https://lnkd.in/g57MxCp5

Had an incredible and insightful week at MIT REAP - Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program, as part of #TeamBotswana. This couldn’t be coming at a better time for Botswana, as she finds herself at a crossroads filled with opportunity and risk. We need to collectively leverage the momentum from the recent historic elections to grow our entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem and elevate the standard of living of our people. Botswana can easily become a hub for African entrepreneurs being the most stable, longest running continuous democracy in Africa, having no limitations on foreign currency as well as a relatively stable Pula. The greater partnership between Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Botswana will undoubtedly help unlock a lot of barriers to innovation in our economy.

The MIT REAP - Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a dynamic global initiative that engages with communities around the world to strengthen innovation-driven entrepreneurial (IDE) ecosystems. It was a pleasure to host representatives from MIT REAP at CIC (Cambridge Innovation Center) and Venture Café Cambridge. The representatives were from different stakeholders groups that are key to building innovation ecosystems -?entrepreneurs, academic research institutions, investors, governments, large corporations - and were from cities of?Botswana, Edmonton, Michigan,?Heilbronn-Franken region, Hualien, Miami, and Valparaiso. We discussed CIC's role in managing and operating innovation infrastructure (co-working spaces, office spaces, public spaces, event spaces, lab facilities) in cities across US, Europe and Asia, and how we conduct year?round,?high impact programming to activate the ecosystems in which we operate. Starting in 1999, and having developed as the world's largest connected innovation campus, CIC now works with local partners and spearhead efforts to build and support the development of industry specific clusters in the areas of life sciences, robotics, energy transition, and many others. Thank you Sinan AbuShanab and colleagues for organizing - we look forward to staying engaged with you and all the REAP participants! Photo by: Bryce Vickmark

The energy has been high at the MIT REAP - Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program Cohort 11, Workshop One this past week! Gathering?our MIT REAP teams from around the globe for the first time in their cohort is always an exceptional experience, filled with innovation, ideas, and collaboration. Shoutout to all of the MIT REAP teams, community partners, staff, and faculty members for their efforts in making this such an impactful workshop. Also, a big thank you goes to The Engine Accelerator for being our host for the week! #MITREAP #GlobalAccelerator #MITSloan

This week, MIT REAP's Kavan O'Connor and Travis Hunter are at the Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal! If you happen to also be at the event and are interested in learning more about MIT REAP, we invite you to send a direct message to Kavan O'Connor to arrange a time to meet up. #MITREAP #GlobalAccelerator

The MIT Sloan Global Programs team has been at the GBSN Beyond 2024 Conference all week in Bogotá, Colombia! MIT Sloan has been a proud supporter of GBSN for over 10 years, and we had the pleasure of being a Leadership Sponsor at this year's event. This was such a great opportunity to contribute to the discussion on the future direction of GBSN, while bringing more awareness to MIT Sloan Global Programs like MIT REAP - Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program and MIT Sloan Visiting Fellows Program! ? #MITSloan #GlobalPrograms

Curious about what the common traits among the world’s great entrepreneurs are? MIT REAP’s Michael Cusumano describes the top three he has encountered in his time observing some of the most innovative individuals & companies: #MITREAP #Entrepreneurship

“You’re measuring by minutes. When I used to run companies and we started companies, we’d measure it in weeks and months.” - Bill Aulet, Managing Director, Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, and MIT REAP Faculty member. Learn more about how generative AI is changing entrepreneurship in this Ideas Made to Matter piece: #MITREAP #Entrepreneurship #AIinTech