Campus Technology Insider Podcast April 2021
Listen: Supporting Entrepreneurship from a Distance: How Harvard's Innovation Labs Went Virtual
00:13
Rhea Kelly: Hello, and welcome to the Campus Technology Insider podcast. I'm Rhea Kelly, executive editor for Campus Technology, and your host.
When you picture a university innovation center, what comes to mind is usually a lot of hands-on collaboration and networking. There might be a makerspace involved, and surely a wall of post-it notes or whiteboard scribbles from a late-night brainstorming session. Basically all the things student entrepreneurs need to share ideas and work on that next startup venture. But what happens when that heavily in-person experience is forced to go virtual? For this episode of the podcast, I spoke with Matt Segneri, executive director of the Harvard Innovation Labs, to find out about the past year's challenges and successes converting in-person student activities into virtual experiences that still capture that entrepreneurial vibe. Here's our chat.
Hi Matt, welcome to the podcast.
01:19
Matt Segneri: Hi Rhea, thanks so much for having me.
01:21
Kelly: So to start, I was hoping you could give a brief overview of the Harvard Innovation Labs and just sort of like, what is it and what goes on there?
01:29
Segneri: Absolutely. So we were founded in 2011 to support any student from any Harvard school at any point in their entrepreneurial journey. So what was an if you build it, will they come strategy, certainly almost a decade later has borne out. What was just one space for students in 2011 is now a thriving three lab ecosystem. So we have a student i-lab that supports hundreds of startups each year and a 30,000-square-foot facility with a number of different things within it that make it a thriving spot for innovation and entrepreneurship. The second is our Launch Lab X GEO, which is a nine-month accelerator to support seed-stage alumni-led startups. And then the third, which is in a separate building, is our Pagliuca Harvard Life Lab that serves high-potential life sciences ventures in a fully equipped wet lab facility. So what's really exciting about the i-lab, if you took a kind of look back today, in 2021, we've served 1,700 ventures, over 3,000 founders from 131 different countries. They've raised $3 billion plus in capital and had a huge impact on dozens of different industries and sectors. What's really unique and special about this university innovation center is the way it brings all 13 Harvard schools together to solve problems at the intersection of industries, disciplines and people and, you know, build this community that centers equity while taking none to make it a truly inclusive space for innovators.
03:07
Kelly: Wow. So, diving into the student side, what would a typical student experience be in the i-lab, and you know, talking pre-pandemic?
03:17
Segneri: So I'd say coming into this space, so it really is a, you know, if you think of a bustling active space, where you have folks from all across the Harvard campus and community from 13 different schools coming into, so you'd have hundreds of students coming through every day to do everything from, you know, work in earnest on their ventures, to attend a workshop, watch an evening panel, meet with each other in the kitchen and spend time, I mean, there are a number of folks who make the i-lab their second home. So they're here, you know, as close to 24-7 as you can be. They're tapping into our makerspace with 3d printers and other tools to prototype, a podcast video studio where they could do professional recordings, an AR/VR lab to beta test their applications, and a whole host of other, you know, pure meeting opportunities just to collaborate, meet new folks, talk to our experts and their mentors, and spend time in earnest, advancing their ideas and ventures.