As many of you may have already heard, the singular figure in the field of innovation-driven entrepreneurship passed away this week suddenly at the age of 88.  He was also my mentor, protector, and dear friend.  I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all the people who reached out to offer their thoughts and check in.  It was a tough week.

That being said, we must honor Ed remember the greatness in him, and cherish how lucky the world was to have a man like him. Here is the announcement on the MIT website with details.

I was going to try to write a tribute summarizing his life but I could not do it justice of what he meant and the announcement above captures the details pretty darn well.  The best I think I can do is to share the eulogy I gave at his funeral and share the video.  I know funeral videos may not be a lot of people’s thing and I respect that, but while this funeral/memorial was particularly emotional and sad, it was also powerful, beautiful, inspirational, and poignant and captured the man better than any printed words could possibly.  It also helped the healing process and reminded us of so many important lessons that we should never forget.

What follows the video are the notes from my eulogy.  It did not exactly transpire the way I planned it or can even remember it now but hopefully, the text will be helpful to fill in holes.

Watch the Ed Roberts Funeral Service on February 29, 2024. To skip to the MIT-specific eulogies:

• 43:28 MIT President Rafael Reif’s Eulogy
• 56:44 Bill Aulet Eulogy

Outline of Bill Aulet’s Eulogy for Ed Roberts

Thank you everyone for coming out to Ed Robert’s funeral service. It has been a very tough 72 hours and our deepest condolences most of all to his wife, Nancy, and his wonderful, wonderful family.  His family bravely and powerfully spoke beautiful, beautiful words that must have been so hard to craft and deliver.  We are here for you and we cherish them.  They help us all in the healing process.  I must do as well, it is hard to follow President Reif’s comments but I must, so here we go.

“Professor Ed Roberts MIT Entrepreneurship”

Five words that are inextricably linked forever.

As you know at MIT, we love data.

So last night I googled these five words and got 6,790,000 results (0.51 seconds) 🡺 23.9M if you remove his name so he is 28% of all references.

Then of course for a benchmark … actually egotistically … I then googled “Bill Aulet MIT Entrepreneurship” – and the results were so humbling but so appropriate.

Results:

About 51,700 results (0.54 seconds)

That tells you in numbers what we know to be true.  Ed stands alone as a singular figure when it comes to MIT Entrepreneurship and even more broadly when it comes to the field writ large.  There is virtually nothing with regard to entrepreneurship at MIT that cannot be traced back to some of Professor Ed Roberts’s DNA – in the classroom and outside of it.  For instance, everything I do started with him. And so many others.

Not only at MIT but beyond, he created the field of research of entrepreneurship as a serious field in the early 1990’s.  Before that, there was essentially nothing.

How did this happen?

Visionary but Even More So Inspirational

Ed would ask what you thought … and listen …  he wanted a big vision … and then after some debate and refinement, he would say, let’s do it.  Expanding our center, designing and teaching new courses, running extra-curricular programs that are now central to the MIT experience …  Ed helped you raise your line of sight, design the course/program, and then motivated you.

Tough Task Master

He was taught by one of the toughest, Jay Forrester.  He demanded the best.  I do remember him bellowing at me in that loud voice when he got excited (or in all CAPS if it was an email), “This is not Harvard (he never let me forget that I have an undergraduate engineering degree from Harvard before they had an engineering school which he thought was crazy), this is not IBM (my employer when he met me), this is MIT and we do things differently.” He pushed you to be your absolute best.  He loved a good argument but he was always willing to change his mind (except in politics) but you had better bring facts and data.  Would not suffer fools well.  The great Brad Feld who later went on to become a famously successful venture capitalist (which means you have to be fearless) recalls the days when he was getting his Ph.D. at MIT under Ed Roberts and when he heard Ed’s boom voice coming down the hallway, he would run to the bathroom and hid in stall standing on the toilet to avoid him.

Supportive

But at the same time, he was incredibly supportive …

He provided sage advice.  He was a fabulous mentor as noted by the seemingly endless outpouring online over the past 24 hours.  He is referred to by so many as “my mentor”. He was really good at this.

If need be, he would drop his shoulder and help out.  Nothing was above him.  He was always the kid from Chelsea who married his childhood sweetheart and never, ever forgot his roots.  Never any pretensions about him.

And also, extremely importantly, once you discussed something and went forward, you always knew he had your back.  He was not a fair-weather fan.  Quite the opposite.  He liked a good fight to get things done (sometimes a bit too much honestly but hey, no one is perfect).

Extended Family

He would never forget a good deed or student.  His memory even to the end, was amazing.  He was also gracious.  His network as you see today seems infinite. It was like Plato, no matter where I went I met people coming back who knew and worshiped Ed.  Over the past 48 hours, even though the outreach has been minimal because this all happened so fast, I have been inundated with emails and stories that I never knew.

That is why and how you get 6.79 Million hits for Professor Ed Roberts MIT Entrepreneurship in Google search.

But what I want to really talk about is Ed Roberts the man.  And this will be much harder but it is so much more meaningful.

As tough as Ed could be, and he could be tough, he was even more supportive and empathetic towards others as humans.  As just one example, as some of you may know, over the past 30 days, the MIT Sloan Dean, Dave Schmittlein, had a very difficult medical diagnosis and had to resign.  Even with all Ed’s health issues, which he hid from almost everyone, he could not spend enough time trying to help Dave, and Dave was infinitely comforted by him.

About seven years ago when I was having a very dark time because of family issues, he noticed and took me out to lunch at Legal Seafoods in Cambridge and wanted to know what was going on.  When I told him, he sat and listened like a combination of a therapist and a saint and then patiently told me that family had to come first as it always had for him, and that I needed to go home right away and he would cover for me. He was right and he did.  I will never forget. Family first.

Nancy, Valerie, Andrea, and Mitch, I think you know, he put you all and those grandkids above all else.  Nothing and I mean nothing came close.  It was unambiguous. Family must come first which is a line I reuse often now with my people to this day.  Our hearts can only imagine what you all are going through.  Words fall far short.  But in the end, while we thought Ed would live forever or at least outlive us all, he had more energy at 88 than most 20-year-olds, we are all human.  We all must die and the question is, did you lead a meaningful life? Did you love, laugh and leave a family legacy? Did you give back? Did you exit with no regrets?  Did you get the most out of your time on this earth?  In all those dimensions, Ed did not cheat life.  Some have said he was larger than life.  No, let us not kid ourselves. No one is larger than life literally.  But let us rather celebrate the fact that he was human.  He was someone who embodied a life lived to its fullest.  It epitomized getting the most out of the finite life we have. He maximized it to the final day. That is all we can ask. I hope this gives you all some peace. We are all better for having known him and the world is certainly a better place.

I would like to close with a final comment and a personal story.

It seems a bit of poetry to me that today is Feb 29th.  It is a leap year.  Why?  Feb 29th doesn’t come around often.  Well, Ed was even rarer than a February 29th.  Infinitely rarer.

In life, we don’t get to meet very many generational figures and humans, but we did get to with Ed Roberts.  He was a singular figure in the history of entrepreneurship.  As you heard from President Reif, he created the field of entrepreneurship as a field of serious study in top universities across the world.  His 1991 book “Entrepreneurs in High Technology” marks the beginning of this era today that is now pervasive across thousands of universities globally. There has never been anyone like him nor will there ever be again.  He was a generation figure in terms of accomplishments but as you have heard from the other speakers today and more importantly, as a human.

Please bear with me on this last personal story because I need it to land this plane.

I will never forget the day I did one of those DNA tests to find out your ancestry, 23and Me, given to me by Trish Cotter, well let’s just say I didn’t come over on the Mayflower or anything and I knew I was a complete mutt but this made it ever clearer.  Still, the results were interesting.

I was so excited that included in the many ancestry categories was 4% Ashkenazi Jew.  Well, my excitement was nothing compared to Ed’s who proclaimed that he always thought I was Jewish and welcomed me to the tribe with unbounded enthusiasm even by his standards.

Well, you were a father figure to me you welcomed me in so many ways. I always refer to you as my mentor but in closing let me say, you were much more than just a mentor, you were my mensch.  The best mensch ever.  You changed my life profoundly and that of thousands of others.

May your memory be a blessing.

Ed, Rest in Peace and I’ll see you on the other side.

WOW! Just woke up at home in Cambridge after a phenomenal week in Europe, first at the University of Luxembourg entrepreneurship incubator run by Pranjul Shah and then in Greece for MIT Global Startup Workshop (MIT GSW) led by the amazing student leadership team and MIT Enterprise Forum Greece let by Vassilis Papakonstantinou, Gerassimos Spyridakis, and Antigoni Molodanof.

COVID Has Receded Thankfully and Entrepreneurship Momentum is Back in Europe. For me the week started in Luxembourg on Monday and Tuesday with a very intense 2-day master class for hundreds of students/faculty/mentors/community. Many great posts on LinkedIn about this and there is a picture below. The environment was electric because of the participants but it was also actively supported by the university Rector Jens Kreisel and US Ambassador Thomas M. Barrett.

Then headed off to Greece for the MIT Global Startup Workshop (MIT GSW) which is celebrating its 25 anniversary, and did they do this great organization proud, they did so much more. I have been to many & this was without a doubt the best ever. The venue was the iconic Megaron Athens Concert Hall with three levels seating thousands (see pictures below), and when you stepped on the stage, you could imagine Maria Callas and others performing. The team filled it up and it was three days of packed programming. It started on Wednesday when Kosta Ligris presented to 550 students (would have been more but it was beyond capacity) in one venue and I presented to over 50 faculty on how entrepreneurship should be taught. This would have been more than enough to justify the trip but then it was followed by an additional 48 hours of absolutely pulsating talks, workshops, serendipitous collisions, and side conversations with entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial leaders across Europe. You can see the program if you google MIT GSW (https://gsw.mit.edu/2023/) but it was so much more. Entrepreneurs, students wanting to be entrepreneurs, educators, ministers, investors, corporates, and many other stakeholders mixing it up in the common areas. There is nothing like being in person. Living in a Zoom world just does not compare. Thanks to all that made this possible and participated.

I return from this trip exhausted but also very optimistic that despite the daunting challenges we face as a society, entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship educators are rising to the challenge and therefore, we should have great hope for the future. But so much still needs to get done and we need to build off this progress. Onward and upward, together!

It is Sunday, February 5, 2023. Two weeks ago at this time, our annual January EDP kicked off IN PERSON for the first time in 3 years. We had experimented with EDP+ last June in conjunction with our MIT delta v cohort and that went well (see EDP+ Innovating On How We Teach Entrepreneurship and Grow the Community) but last week was back to the “classic” version … and it was awesome! It just never gets old.

“What is EDP?” or as it is officially called “The MIT Executive Education Entrepreneurship Development Program. This is when we take as much of what we do throughout the full year with our students to make them innovation-driven entrepreneurs, jam it into one week, and make it available to the outside world on the MIT campus. It is not a series of lectures or talks as much as it is a fully immersive experience of building a company from scratch in five days with people you have never met before. I know it sounds insane because it is … but it also works. Nothing can teach you to be a better entrepreneur in less time as well as this program does. Don’t take it from me, just read the reviews.

Every EDP class is unique and the 2023 cohort was anchored by a very strong foundation of hand-selected participants from Northern Ireland, Scotland, Queensland University of Technology, Danfoss, Poppe + Potthoff, and Southern University and A&M College all integrated with a dynamic group of selected, committed, and talented entrepreneurs from over a dozen additional countries. They might be entrepreneurs in startups, government, academia, or in non-profit, but they all share a determination to up-level their skills in entrepreneurship.

It started on Sunday afternoon when we pulled everyone together for the first time and they were told that “yes they can” be better entrepreneurs and we were starting right away. Under the expert tutelage of Trust Center Entrepreneurs in Residence Paul Cheek (also the Executive Director) and George Whitfield, the participants pitched their best idea and then, through an organic Darwinian selection process, these got narrowed down to 14 teams of 6 to 8 members. By Monday night the number was down to 13 teams as one group decided it would be best if they split up and joined other teams. And we were off.

Each day has a theme and begins with a lecture on the relevant Disciplined Entrepreneurship steps and associated materials with an emphasis on hands-on guidance followed by working sessions and then rapid-fire simulations with empathetic experts (and yes, there’s time between sessions to adjust the teams’ works based on the feedback). The students regroup at night and continue to iterate on their plans. The daily focus areas are as follows:

• Monday: (A) Define Target Customer, (B) Value Proposition
• Tuesday: (A) Product, (B) Competitive Advantage
• Wednesday: (A) Business Model, Pricing & LTV, (B) Go-To-Market and Cost of Customer Acquisition
• Thursday: (A) Financial Model, (B) Fundraising, (C) Final Presentation Prep
• Friday: Final Presentation to a Jury of Judges

You’d think such a timeline would be destined to produce shallow plans, but that is not true. Even though all teams start with just an idea, by Friday they have compelling plans that are not only logical in their flow, but also validated by Primary Market Research completed by the teams during the week. They also know what they don’t know, but have a plan to get started. It is absolutely compelling to see the presentations on Friday, which never cease to amaze; they get better every year.

But EDP is not all sunshine, butterflies, rainbows, and unicorns. During the week, there is tension on many fronts. People are pushed well beyond their comfort zones and team dynamics can be on the border of explosive. That being said, nothing great is easy or accomplished without great work. The teams find their ways through the struggle and come out stronger at the end. They not only understand the process, they now have the confidence to execute it again assisted by the network of warriors who they can count on from a special shared experience.

I am not sure if it was the pandemic or what, but this year’s class was the strongest we have ever had top to bottom. No offense meant to any previous cohort, but the bar just keeps going up every year. We seem to get more and more experienced (but very open to learning to get better) entrepreneurs. I saw a team knocked out in the first round of presentations that would easily have won in other years. That is no disrespect to others, just an objective benchmark on how far entrepreneurship is advancing. You can’t stand still.

The course is a micro-test of antifragility. You can’t just survive the course, by the end the participants must (and do) thrive in the ambiguity, the fast-moving pace, the entrepreneurial community, and the humbling environment created. That’s the point. The mindset, skillset, and way of operating to see change as an opportunity to be embraced as opposed to a threat and seek to avoid it. All in one wild week.

It never gets old. Many of the students went to the Celtics-Lakers game on Saturday night (after they slept in to recover) and it was a great metaphor. The Celtics went on a roller coaster ride during the game seemingly winning and losing it a number of times, but they never lost their focus or confidence. In the end, the Celtics won in a most rewarding way … but it sure as hell wasn’t easy. A perfect metaphor.

A few other observations:

1. The World is Flat: You can be an entrepreneur anywhere in the world now. You can also build teams across countries as well.
2. AI is the New Game Changer and It is Pervasive: Data Analytics and Machine Learning (ML) specifically can be applied to almost any problem, and if they have not already, there is a good opportunity for significant improvement. It’s like digitization was in previous times, but that is just table stakes now. You need to get the data and apply ML in order to get to the next level. And yes there were a number of teams leveraging ChatGPT technology.
3. Entrepreneurship (that we teach) is an Ethical Activity: I was so proud that all of the teams were doing things that were so much more than just profiteering off a soulless arbitrage opportunity. They were helping blind, dyslexic children, building a better platform to advance careers for women in tech, and even the vaping team (which I will admit to being worried about early in the week) came up with a way to help addicted vapers find a way out.
4. One Week Can Changes People’s Lives: This has always amazed me but it is true. Just see the reviews, which motivate us every year to bring our A game and keep improving EDP.
5. The Process Works: Trust the process! John Knapton of the Catalyst Organization in Northern Ireland commissioned a study showing quantitatively the profound impact on the teams over time and the results are summarized in the article “What Gives Me Confidence That We Are Successfully Teaching Entrepreneurship”.

Huge thanks to my fabulous co-conspirator Paul Cheek who is taking Disciplined Entrepreneurship to the next level in the classroom. Also to Ann Marie Maxwell who has been working on EDP for 5 years now and gets it done with a smile and at a level that is truly wonderful to be a part of. Much thanks to her team: Mary, Michelle, Magda, and Jan. So much love to all the mentors and judges who give their time to help out they are too numerous to name here, but you know who you are. Also, guest lecturers Adam Blake, Matt Rhodes-Kropf, and Jeff Fagnan. It is a small but mighty team. Lastly, a very special thanks to all the participants who just get it done. Reminds me of a line I love from a famous bullfighter poem:

The bullfight critics ranked in rows
fill the enormous plaza full.
But only one is there who really knows,
and he’s the one who fights the bull.

Go get ‘em EDPers of 2023 and we look forward to hearing how you change the world for the better! Welcome to the community.

Every year it is fun to look back and see what your favorite articles of the year were. Often, we have a feeling of confidence in some but there are always surprises when we look at the year-end data. This year it is no different.  At a high level, the 2022 list is dominated by new materials but three seemingly evergreen classics have secured a spot in the top ten and they are all written by people not named “Aulet”. Still, the most popular articles for 2022 are populated most of all by the ones that give a sneak peek and ask for feedback on the new proposed book on Financial Literacy for Entrepreneurs.

One interesting note, the article by a guest, Md. Rashed Mamun, on how Disciplined Entrepreneurship has had an impact on creating entrepreneurs in Bangladesh (Disciplined Entrepreneurship: A Gamechanger in Supporting Young Entrepreneurs of Bangladesh) got more than double the views of what I thought would be sure clickbait regarding the back story of how the English Royals came to visit Boston (Disciplined Entrepreneurship Helps Bring Prince William and Kate to Boston). I don’t know how you feel about that but it made me feel good about our readers who correctly, prioritize impact over publicity and interesting storytelling – although there is a role for both.

Without further ado, here are the top articles from 2022 as voted on by your clickstream (i.e., page views) in reverse order:

Honorable Mention: EDP+: Innovating On How We Teach Entrepreneurship and Grow the Community

There is a very real and powerful community of hundreds of successful EDP alumni and you never know for sure why something is successful, but my guess is that this helped drive these numbers. That being said, as the field of entrepreneurship is constantly changing, we also need to continually innovate the way we teach it so this should ring true to an even broader community and it appears it did.

#10: Chapter 3: Financial Modeling (Part 1)

This is the first of four entries that made the top ten hit list for 2022 regarding the first draft of a book on Financial Literacy for Entrepreneurs. Clearly, a lot of interest in this very important topic, and I agree there is not enough out there that meets the need here. This is the reason we made an edX course on the topic as well and why I drafted this material for our courses and workshops at MIT. It still needs a lot of work and not sure if and when it will come out in a polished format but the message is clear. There is lots of incentive now to finish the job based on the feedback. Just need more time.

Ironically, not sure why this particular article got fewer hits than the follow-on article which was the second part of the chapter but I am guessing this is because Part 2 got into more specifics on the actual modeling…. but you still have to understand the context and assumptions so don’t skip Part1!

#9: LTV Calculation Spreadsheet

An absolute classic, this was the #1 article of 2020 (the year it was written by guest writer Joe Gibson a Lecturer at Clemson University) and it remains popular to this day. Extremely useful and really a basic spreadsheet to help people calculate Life Time Value (LTV) with simple directions on how to use it. Nothing fancy, just high value and straight to the point. Never gets old.

#8: All People Are Born Entrepreneurs, Then Society Takes This Away

Published in April 2022, this was a translation of an interview done by a Greek newspaper. Didn’t realize it was going to be so popular but people loved the title and it drew them in and they stayed. It covers a lot of topics with relatively short answers. The trip to Greece was also very popular so not sure why it got so many hits but we know it did.

#7: Chapter 2: The Basics of Finance

When this second article got so much interest and lots of comments, it was clear there is a real market for this and it was not just a one-hit wonder. Again, you will see two more entries beyond this one and the #10 on this list reemphasizing this point. Won’t repeat what is in those entries.

#6: The Decision-Making Unit: The Who-is-Who of Your B2B Sales Process

Congratulations to guest writers Martin Giese & Matthias Hilpert for an article that was originally published on September 5, 2021, that is still getting hits today. It highlights some of the material from their book, Fast Forward: B2B Sales from Startup to Unicorn, and is very substantive and specific in its guidance on the topic of life and death for entrepreneurs.  Yes, we can take a more systematic (i.e., engineering) approach to sales and it makes a huge difference.

#5: How Well is MIT Really Doing at Creating the Next Generation Entrepreneurs?

This was published late in the year (November 22, 2022) but I was confident it would get a lot of interest. The article is really an analysis that we had to do internally at MIT to understand better the PitchBook university rankings data when it came out that month. Taking the numbers and doing a more scientific manner was definitely in order and that is what we did. Once done, thought it was worth sharing and it seems it was. Interesting results.

#4: The Problem Statement Canvas: A Deep Dive in Problem Definition for Startups and Innovation Teams

Again, a classic published in an earlier year (2021) but like wine, it just gets better with time. I look back at it now as one of the best of all time. It is deep but extremely easy to digest and put into action. Not surprisingly, it is written by the grand master of this d-eship.com website and the illustrator of the Disciplined Entrepreneurship books, Marius Ursache. Even with his greatness and seemingly magical powers, he can’t make you read the article. Still, you did and it has the most votes and associated highest scores for reviews. If you haven’t read it, definitely worth a read, and bookmark it. Not surprising it has come back and hope it does for many years.

#3: Chapter 1: Why Financial Literacy and an Investor Readiness Program?

Published on January 2, 2022, to start the new year, not surprising that this is at the top of the list. The positive reception to this encouraged the release of three more installments, making the top 10 of the year.

#2: Chapter 3: Financial Modeling (Part 2)

Interestingly the last installment just barely edged out the first installment (by .1%) so the interest did not wane over the year. Now we have to find a way to complete the package of material on this topic, polish it up and get it out. We hear you on this. We just need to get the resources and bandwidth, more below.

#1: DE Workbook Worksheets Now Available in Digital Form

Ironically but not surprisingly the number one most popular article for 2022 by far – by over 2X – had only five sentences in it, and (most importantly) one download button. It was providing free access to all the digital worksheets from the Disciplined Entrepreneurship Workbook. This did not surprise me at all as it has been beneficial to our students at MIT and was glad to make them generally available. Don’t lose the bookmark! Suspect, this will be on the Greatest Hits List for years to come.

What you chose to click on is something that we take seriously. It tells us what is important. We will look to produce more of this kind of material in 2023 and encourage guest writers to use this platform as four people have above to give broader perspectives than I can.

What else does 2023 bring? I wish I could promise you more on the Financial Literacy book for entrepreneurs but someone pointed out that 2023 is the 10 anniversary of the release of the original Disciplined Entrepreneurship book. Wouldn’t it be nice for a new version? Not promising anything specific but assure you will hear really interesting things starting with my MIT colleague Paul Cheek’s work on Venture Creation Tactics will be forthcoming shortly.

It never ends, thank goodness. Something is always new. That is why we love entrepreneurship. Happy 2023 everyone!!!

As some of your who know me, I prefer the less structured talks and events where there is more audience interaction.  A one-way talk seems to me like you can just be reading a script so what’s the point? You can just read that. There is inherently more energy and surprise in the improvised events and that more reflects what entrepreneurship and life are all about. You have to adapt.

Recently (December 7, 2022), MIT Exec Ed ask Paul Cheek and me to sit down and talk with the Dean of MIT Executive Education, Peter Hirst, about the current state of entrepreneurship and basically produce content that will help get people to apply to EDP. Since I love EDP and I have seen it change so many lives, it was not a hard sale to get at least me to do it. Technically the title is “Unlock Startup Success with MIT’s Bill Aulet and Paul Cheek: Discover world-renowned frameworks and tools used by successful startup founders and corporate teams to build new ventures,” which is quite a mouthful. Don’t be scared. Once we start, it takes on its own wonderful trajectory.

You can tell when an event is going well and the response on the chat was great so am making that available now for you to watch if you want but know you can listen to it like a podcast if that is your preference. There were hundreds of people online peppering us with questions and comments so you will see improvisation in action. And I am confident you will find it useful and stimulating information in many ways while also being entertaining – and if done properly, the second reinforces the first.

Here is the link to enjoy it and many thanks to Peter Hirst, Ann Marie Maxwell, and the whole team at MIT Exec Ed who makes it possible to run EDP and other classes as well as this LinkedIn live event.

This past week, you have probably seen that Prince William and Princess Kate visited Boston for their big Earthshot Prize and what a week it was. President Biden and scores of others were on hand for this enormous event. The hoopla from the visit was really quite amazing.  What does this have to do with Disciplined Entrepreneurship? Well, actually a lot.

While we entrepreneurs generally don’t care about credentials and titles (read “royalty”) for their own sake, the cause of fighting climate change is one of, if not the most, consequential challenges we face. As such, we applaud William and Kate’s efforts with the Earthshot Prize. Using their platform and access to capital to create incentives and visibility for entrepreneurs working to address this challenge is very helpful.

Almost fifteen years ago, inspired by then MIT President Susan Hockfield, Tod Hynes and I started to work to do something unique with the existing committed players in the MIT energy field, at both the faculty and student levels (including John Deutch, Ernie Moniz, Richard Lester, John Tester, Don Lessard, and more; and probably most importantly the students, including David Danielson, Nol Brown, Joel Moxley, and others too numerous to name). We looked to integrate our expertise in entrepreneurship with the powerful technical and policy capabilities that MIT had in the field to create a specialized lane for students of clean energy entrepreneurship.

This started with a class called “Energy Ventures,” which was built off applying the fundamental framework of launching a company to the energy sector. The course was designed to be interdisciplinary and bring together technical, policy, business, and strategy courses across MIT and Harvard to create a space and structure to develop new startups in the field.

It turned out this was not as easy as we thought it would be, as these two articles about the journey explain (What’s Wrong with Energy Investing Part 1 and What’s Wrong with Energy Investing Part 2).  The insights we gained as we dove into it led us to carefully design the Energy Ventures course differently than our other entrepreneurship courses at MIT.

We also had another insight; that we needed to celebrate these entrepreneurs and create a new platform for them to succeed because these ventures were not going to be able to compete with traditional entrepreneurship for short-term recognition. This was the genesis for the MIT Clean Energy Prize, which owes eternal thanks to NSTAR’s and now Eversource CEO Joe Nolan for supporting us at the birthing stage and the first five years of existence.

Fast forward 15 years later and the Energy Ventures Alumni group is now a strong and extremely powerful community of 500+ change makers who continue to help each other in this generational challenge. Alumni have spun off many dozens of companies and organizations like Greentown Labs that have done enormous good for the world. Many alumni are now in government, large corporations, investing groups, academia, and other organizations so the community has expanded well beyond just startup founders.

At the Trust Center, we now work with leaders in Texas on a project called TEX-E to bring this influence beyond just those entrepreneurs getting educated in the Boston area. We have hired our first EIR (Entrepreneur in Residence) dedicated to climate tech, the great Ben Soltoff. He works closely with Greentown Labs, now the biggest clean energy incubator in the world, in both Boston and its new location in Houston. Our center not only continues to support Tod Hynes, Frankie O’Sullivan, Libby Wayman, and Jacquelyn Pless in teaching the continually updated Climate and Energy Ventures course, but we have brought Tod on as a Senior Advisor to our center after his success in the marketplace.  The Boston/MIT Clean Energy Innovation Ecosystem is considered the gold standard for building entrepreneurs who can address the two-prong imperative of energy and climate.

So what does this have to do with the English Royalty coming to Boston? Actually a lot.

When it became clear there was an opportunity to bring this high-visibility program to Boston, there were some interesting connection points. (Note that they give out five awards for £1 million each, which gets a lot of attention, but with all the other press and dignitaries and a big party, the eyeballs are even more critical.)

First of all, the Earthshot Prize is based on the concept of the US Moonshot program; i.e., set out a big hairy audacious goal that then helps to align massive resources behind it to make it happen in a dramatically expedited fashion. It all started in September 1962 with President Kennedy’s speech on the subject that said the US will work to land a human on the moon before the end of the decade, which many felt was preposterous. (Note: It is so worth watching that speech again; just click on the link and it has the critical 60 seconds. Amazingly inspirational!) President John F. Kennedy is from Boston and his beautiful library resides in this city. It is the 60th anniversary of that transformative speech and this was not lost on his daughter.

Caroline Kennedy sent a personal letter to the Earthshot Prize selection committee to propose Boston as the site for the prize ceremony in 2022. But more than just a sentimental narrative was needed to be successful. There also had to be a logical narrative and this related directly to the leadership role that Boston has taken in this area. The selection committee was intrigued, but more needed to be done.

The second step was closing the deal in convincing the selection committee that Boston was the proper venue – and the Kennedys turned to Tod Hynes. Tod hosted them at the Trust Center with slides, videos, and visitors. He organized and then gave them a red-carpet tour of MIT and then the city, which he was now working to align behind this bold concept. He was very close with the selection committee and convinced them Boston was the location.

Simply put, while the Kennedys are at the front of the line for making this happen (and there are other players too), it is fair to say that there is no Earthshot Prize in Boston without Tod Hynes. By extension, there is also no Earthshot Prize in Boston without the powerful community that made this region a leader in this field. While you will not see them in the pictures of glitterati, I could care less. They are the real heroes here in my mind. It was a fifteen-year overnight success. Everyone shows up for the party but the hard work was done well before.

It’s dangerous to do so because I will leave someone off the long list of so many extremely deserving individuals, but I will still make a call out to a few who have contributed so much to this effort yet were not mentioned above: Alex Prather, Emily Reichert, Lara Cottingham, Brian Korgel, David Baldwin, Barbara Burger, Michael Kearney, Alicia Carelli, and Susan Neal.

Thanks to all whether named or not. And now you know how DE helped to get Prince William and Kate to Boston and all the other commotion. Still blows my mind. What we create can really change the world. Believe.

PS: By the way, winning these prizes can be overrated. Working hard to try to win them and creating a dedicated team that is able to achieve initial escape velocity, whether it wins or not, has been shown to be the real gold that comes out of these competitions. More often than not, the entrepreneurs who don’t win end up being the most impactful and the competition just got them going. Still, I can’t help myself from sharing that one of our student teams, Takachar, was one of the five winners in the first round of Earthshot Prizes, and came out of our Energy Ventures course. So proud of them.