Tough Tech Venture Labs
Course Number 1728
27 Sessions
Project
Qualifies for Management Science Track Credit
TTV Labs is a 3.0 credit field course in which students immerse in the strategic and commercialization challenges of real world, early-stage "tough tech" ventures. Tough tech ventures (TTVs) apply cutting-edge science and technology to tackle difficult and significant societal problems such as climate change, autonomous transportation, space exploration and next generation computing including AI/ML and quantum computing.
In the TTV Labs course, small self-organized (3-4 person) student teams will be matched with carefully curated TTV startups (based on student interests) to collaborate on a semester-long project focused on tackling a critical commercialization challenge.
The seminar sessions (once a week meetings for 2 hours) will be split between content rich conversations on practical topics like techno-economic analysis, IP strategies, customer engagement and discovery techniques, partnership structures, supply chain and manufacturing approaches, and team design. The weekly class gatherings will also afford Teams time to coordinate and provide sharing, learning and feedback opportunities across teams.
Throughout the course, students will also have the opportunity to engage with the professors, TTV domain experts (entrepreneurs, investors, and operators) and other student peers from across the local Boston/Cambridge TTV innovation ecosystem for discussions, feedback and support in honing their analyses.
Students need not have a technical or engineering background, but this is a great chance to learn how to dive deeper into cutting edge technologies while applying commercial and business experience and frameworks. Co-enrollment with the companion case-based Tough Tech Ventures course is highly encouraged, but not required. The final course deliverable is primarily the project deliverable for the TTV project partner.
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