MIT DUAL-USE VENTURES COURSE
Brought to you by Mission Innovation X
DUAL-USE VENTURES
2024 Course
Date: Feb 5-8, 2024. (Feb. 5, 6, and 7 is 4-7pm. Feb. 8 has consultation slots between 9am-5pm.
Location: In-person at MIT IHQ Hacker Reactor
Who: Individuals, from students to private and public sector partners, that are interested in building, scaling, or working at a technology company that can provide value to both government and commercial customers.
Course registration is open! Join us February 5-8
Please register using the form below or click here to open in a new window.
Course Description
Theme: Navigating the Dual-Use Ecosystem
Purpose
The Dual-use Ventures IAP course is a learning opportunity for students, technology builders, companies, and the broader community looking to understand:
- Why dual-use technology is important for U.S. innovation.
- How to build, grow and scale dual-use ventures in the US and around the globe among like-minded, open societies (allies).
- The key challenges ventures face when developing technology serving both government and commercial customers and how to navigate them.
We’ll discuss frameworks, funding opportunities, entrepreneur roadmaps, and government resources.
Structure
This short course offers expert-led presentations in person on the MIT campus. The format has historically been highly interactive, and we encourage those eager to engage with instructors and peers to attend the course in its entirety.
Course Thesis
Startups can be purposeful about designing their technology company to be ready to pursue both commercial and government markets. This requires being informed, prepared, and ready when either market opportunity becomes available.
Target Audience
This course is for students, alumni, technology builders, companies, and other members of the dual-use innovation ecosystem who want to learn useful and actionable steps to lead or support dual-use ventures. Topics in this course are particularly relevant to technology entrepreneurs interested in learning more about working with the national security and defense community in scaling a technology-product company.
MIT strives to enable higher levels of diversity and inclusion in the innovation ecosystem. Research shows that diversity is a key factor for innovation, helping unearth inherent biases in technological solutions, enabling teams to make better decisions, and driving stronger performance. We strongly encourage members of traditionally marginalized communities to participate in this course.
Key Outcomes
- Understand the need to move opportunistically across both commercial and defense markets in the early stage of a venture
- Gain insights on how dual-use ventures can navigate the Dual-Use Readiness levers over the course of their commercialization journey.
- Learn about government driven incentives across various national security and defense innovation agencies.
- Gain insights on how to protect the long-term value of your technology for both commercial and government markets with a robust IP strategy
- Understand the key challenges related to adoption of dual-use technology
Schedule (Subject to Change)
*All times are local to Cambridge, Massachusetts
Day 1 | Introduction to Dual-Use Ecosystem
1600 – 1610 | Welcome Message | Cambridge Project’s Wale Lawal and MIx’s Jonathan Miller
1610 – 1650 | Introduction to Dual-Use Ventures | Professor Fiona Murray
1650 – 1700 | Break
1710 – 1750 | Learning about Defense and National Security Dual-Use Focused Agencies & How to Engage Part 1 (DIU + other innovation agencies) | John Griffin
1750 – 1800 | Break
1800 – 1810 | How to Work with MIT-LL Tech Ventures Office
1810 – 1900 | Part 2 NSIN Overview | David Skinner
1900 | End of Day 1
Day 2 | Navigating Through the Dual-Use Readiness Levels
1600 – 1610 | Welcome
1610 – 1650 | Overview of Dual-Use Readiness Levels (How to communicate your value proposition) | Katy Person
1650 – 1700 | Break
1700 – 1715 | Non-dilutive Financing & Research Program Funding | Asad Akram
1715 – 1750 | Best legal practices to preserve IP during the commercialization journey | Eric Blatt
1750 – 1800 | Break
1800 – 1900 | Startup Stories – Fireside Chat / Panel | Arron Acosta (RISE Robotics), Cameron Halliday (Mantel Capture), Orin Hoffman (VXI Capital), and emceed by Jim Matheson (Harvard Business School)
1900 | End of Day 2
Day 3 | Current Challenges Facing the Dual-Use Ecosystem
1600 – 1610 | Welcome
1610 – 1650 | Overview of Challenges Facing Dual-Use Ecosystem | Jon Bronson & Geoff Orazem ( J2 Ventures)
1650 – 1700 | Break
1700 – 1710 | Overview of The Cambridge Project | CP Team
1710 – 1720 | Project 1: Accelerating Adoption of Dual-Use Technology
1720 – 1730 | Project 2: Effectively Leveraging Public & Private Capital
1730 – 1740 | Project 3: Internationalizing Tough Tech
1740 – 1750 | Project 4: Efficacy of Government Driven Incentives
1750 – 1800 | Course Wrap-up
—————————
1800 – 2000 | MIT Mission Meetup → If you are interested in attending *only* the Mission Meetup and not the DUV course, please register here.
Day 4 | Start-up Workshop [Optional]
0900 – 1700 | 1-on-1 consultations with Dual-Use Experts to help advise on SBIRs/STTRs, Commercialization Strategy, and other Dual-Use Related Topics [virtual or in-person]
//END SCHEDULE//
Interested in our previous courses/workshops? Check out the videos below.