28-02-2025
MIT Harnesses AI to Accelerate Startup Ambitions
Although he'd already started four ventures, Remington Hotchkis figured the Massachusetts Institute of Technology could teach him something new about launching a company. 'I knew that they were teaching a disciplined approach to entrepreneurship, and I lack discipline in many regards,' he says. But he didn't know it would give him a tool that, in just six days, could turn an idea that had come to him out of the blue into a fully fleshed-out business he hopes will help to defend Southern California against wildfires.
At a January boot camp, the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship introduced students, including Hotchkis, to software that effectively automates starting a business by using artificial intelligence to do market research and analysis. 'Somebody can sit down for an afternoon and get a very thoughtful output,' says Paul Cheek, the Trust Center's executive director and a senior lecturer at MIT's Sloan School of Management. After six days in the center's Entrepreneurship Development program, where participants attend about eight hours of lectures each day, followed by several hours working with teammates and the JetPacks, as MIT calls the software, 'people come out with a compelling business plan,' Cheek says.
