Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Leaders (REAL) (15.364)

About the Class

Faculty

Building on our action-oriented approach, we also want participating students – from MIT and beyond – to be able to use the class to create actionable plans. You can shape your final assignment to be a plan for your next job, a pitch to an organization, or a call to action for a community. By the last week of the class (ie 18 May), we hope that some of you will share your final assignments publicly, so as to encourage and inspire others. Now is a time to consciously build ‘inclusion’ into the innovation ecosystems we care about, especially as they will be key to helping our regional economies out of the Covid recession in 2021. Let’s make sure this recovery is more inclusive than the one a decade ago, the one that left people and places behind. So, whether you wish to focus on Roxbury or Rwanda, Greater Boston or Great Britain (or you just don’t know yet!), we hope you will consider joining us in our iEco4REAL class in the Spring. Our first two sessions, on Tuesdays 16 and 23 Feb (530-830pm) will be totally ‘on-line’, but we then transition to a hybrid format, with us at MIT teaching ‘in-person’ (joined by those able/willing/allowed to access the MIT campus). Innovation Ecosystems (iEco) for Regional Entrepreneurship-Acceleration Leaders (4REAL) is a practical MIT course aimed at students wishing for a research-based but action-oriented understanding of how to accelerate innovation-driven entrepreneurship and build vibrant regional economies. It takes as its starting point the innovation-driven entrepreneurship ecosystems (iEcosystems) that have served as the foundation of many successful regions since the first industrial revolution, and now characterize places such as Silicon Valley, Boston/Cambridge, London, Israel and Singapore. The course takes the perspective of five critical stakeholders: entrepreneurs, risk capital providers, and universities, as well as policymakers (government) and large corporations. It provides frameworks for understanding the strengths and weaknesses of innovation-driven entrepreneurship in particular regions, and then focuses on interventions – programs and policies – that can be designed and implemented across regional economies worldwide. The course also takes a systematic approach to assessing the metrics of ‘innovation-driven entrepreneurship’ ecosystems (iEcosystems). Our recent Working Paper is published to seek feedback from researchers, practitioners, decision-makers, and students in our IEco4REAL class!

Dr. Phil Budden

Dr. Phil Budden is a Senior Lecturer at MIT's Management School, in Sloan's TIES (Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Strategic-management) Group, where he focuses on 'innovation-driven entrepreneurship' (IDE) and innovation ecosystems. Phil co-teaches in the successful 'Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program' (REAP), an ExecEd program for regional teams from around the globe interested in accelerating 'innovation-driven entrepreneurship'; in the related 15.364 class, known as the 'Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Lab' (REAL), aimed at MBAs and Sloan Fellows; and on similar topics in a variety of degree and ExecEd settings. Phil's approach combines academic, historical and real-world perspectives on how different stakeholders - including Entrepreneurs, Universities and 'Risk Capital' providers, alongside Corporate enterprises and Government policymakers - can all contribute to building successful innovation ecosystems. Phil is currently on leave from the British Government, and joins MIT having worked recently in Boston's private sector for the Royal Bank of Scotland's US subsidiary, Citizens Bank, where he focused on financing transatlantic (especially British-American) trade and investment. His background as a diplomat makes him well-suited to the 'global innovation' of REAP/REAL, the interplay among the REAP teams, and the negotiations within the 'innovation ecosystems' (especially between Corporate and Government stakeholders). In the fall of 2012, while a Visiting Scholar at MIT, Phil had undertaken a project on innovation and entrepreneurship for the British Prime Minister's office at No 10 (and UK Trade and Investment) to inform the UK's Entrepreneurs Campaign. From 2007 until 2012, he had served as the British Consul General to New England, in which role he had been responsible for transatlantic business issues, including trade and investment, corporate/government affairs, as well as science and innovation, leading him to an abiding interest in entrepreneurship. In that time, he also moved the British Consulate to One Broadway (aka e70) to be closer to MIT, Sloan and Kendall Square. Prior to MIT, Phil had joined the British Foreign Office in 1993, and spent his first decade as a diplomat focused on Britain's membership of the European Union (EU), involving its key economic, financial and technology policies. After 9/11, his second decade as a British diplomat was spent in the US: first at the British Embassy in Washington (2002-2007), focused on transatlantic economic and business issues, including technology security, international science and innovation links, and trade policy; and later based in Boston (2007-2012) as Her Britannic Majesty's Consul General to New England. In sum, Phil has held these posts with the British government: British Cabinet Office, London (5/6/2001 - 6/30/2002); British Embassy, Washington DC (7/1/2002 - 8/5/2007); 1st Secretary (UK-US Technology, Science & Innovation) Washington DC; Adviser to the PM at No10 (European/institutional strategy) London, UK. Phil holds a BA and MA in History from Lincoln College, the University of Oxford; an MA in History and Government from Cornell University; and a PhD (DPhil) in History and International Political Economy from the University of Oxford.