2024 MIT Sustainability Conference: Startup Exchange Introduction Remarks

ARIADNA RODENSTEIN: Thank you, Yuri. We're going to leave the World Cup out of this. So, welcome, everyone. This is the fast paced startup lightning talks. I'm Ariadna Rodenstein, Program Manager with MIT Startup Exchange. And shortly you're going to hear from eight exciting startups, all members of Startup Exchange.

But first, I'm just going to share a little overview of our program. So MIT Startup Exchange was created over eight years ago within the Office of MIT Corporate Relations, as you heard earlier, to support MIT connected startups as they grow, expand, and help solve some of the world's greatest challenges. And we do this by fostering collaborations and partnerships between the startups and industry, primarily ILP members represented by so many of you joining us today, and the MIT innovation ecosystem and beyond.

The startups in our program are based on MIT-licensed technology or founded by MIT faculty, staff, or alumni. And they can also be vetted by some of our MIT partners, including the Engine Ventures, the E14 Fund, CSAIL, MIT.nano, the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, and many others.

And so our program has around 1,000 startups in it. Usually they join at pilot stage or beyond, and they cover all sectors and all geographies. And we did this-- within this bigger network, we also have a group that we call STEX25. Some of you might have heard of it. And this is where we provide customized support to the startups for a period of one year, where they have greater visibility, more introductions, and so on.

And so when it comes to this value of Startup Exchange, the startups in the program have exposure to a global network of industry decision makers and the corporates have access to vetted MIT-connected startups. On events, we host a variety of them all throughout the year-- local, international, summer conferences like today, where we host an startup lightning talk session and exhibit. And we also have our demo days, other webinars, one-on-one meetings, workshops, and much more.

And the benefit of this for the ILP members is that we can tailor an event according to your needs. And the benefit to the startups is that we can take you onto different markets that you're expanding into, perhaps, and you have greater visibility into new ecosystems.

We also launched calls for startups. We call these opportunities, and they're based on corporate priorities and internal challenges. And so the startups can apply on our website. And if they're selected, they can work with you as an ILP member to help you solve a problem that you're facing in your industry. And all in all, this is a very curated and customized approach. So I hope everyone here and online is able to take advantage of these benefits and of course come talk to any of us today if you have any questions about it.

And so as I mentioned before, Startup Exchange was created to help foster these partnerships and collaborations. And these are just a few of the success cases up-to-date. And they can take the shape of a proof of concept, grand-scale pilot customers, joint R&D, and all the way to an acquisition. And again, this is a forum where some conversations maybe will start or continue today to lead to more success cases.

And so before turning it over to the entrepreneurs, I'd like to highlight some of the upcoming events. We have a very busy fall, so I hope you join us for a lot of these. We have the Madrid Symposium in November, the Nano Summit tomorrow, which some of you might be aware of. And then on November 19 and 20, we're back here at the Marriott. So please join us for the R&D Conference, our signature event. There's still time to register for it.

Then we have a webinar on decarbonization, our Houston symposium, then the Demo Days, which happen every couple of months. So it's a chance to meet a lot of startups at once virtually. And then in January we're going to Asia, to Thailand and Japan.

So with that, these are the eight startups participating today. And thank you to them. Thank you to all of you. And let's get started.