Finance

BIO

Joost Bonsen is a member of the Global Board of Directors of the MIT Enterprise Forum. Joost studies innovation everywhere, from invention in research labs through action in entrepreneurial startups and innovation ecosystems generally. He received his bachelor’s degree in Bio-Electrical Engineering from MIT. He most recently finished the Management of Technology program at MIT Sloan with his thesis The Innovation Institute: From Creative Inquiry Through Real-World Impact at MIT. Prior to MIT Sloan, Bonsen ran the MIT Founders Project which quantified the economic impact of MIT-related entrepreneurs, findings ultimately published by BankBoston as MIT: Impact of Innovation. Formerly an entrant, mentor, judge, and Lead Organizer of the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition, he is co-founder of the Howtoons Project, which distributes educational cartoons showing kids everywhere “How To” build things using everyday materials and tools. He is co-founder of the MIT Innovation Club, TechLink, and numerous entrepreneurial events and gatherings, including the MIT Chairman’s Salon. Joost was co-creator and founding teaching assistant or instructor of several MIT classes and seminars, including the “Nuts & Bolts of Business Plans” with MIT Enterprise Forum Chairman Joe Hadzima, “Developmental Entrepreneurship and Digital Innovations” with Professor Sandy Pentland, and most recently, “Neurotechnology Ventures” with Ed Boyden and Rutledge Ellis-Behnke. He has hosted a weekly television show “HighTechFever” since 1999, and has run entrepreneurial networking VentureNights at the MIT Muddy Charles Pub since the mid-1990s.

INTERVIEW

Peter Zak: Tells us about the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship. What are its goals and purpose? Who is it for?

Joost Bonsen: Our goal is to encourage and catalyze more grassroots entrepreneurship in developing countries. We do this principally by focusing on, and financially supporting, MIT graduate students, who aspire to found, build, and lead ventures in emerging regions, including Africa, Latin America, Central and South Asia, and more. We connect these MIT Legatum Fellows with one another, to our International Development Network at the Institute, and to a growing developmental entrepreneurship network worldwide. While at MIT they learn through our Mens et Manus method of learning-by-doing in action labs, field experiences, and entrepreneurship competitions. And we continue to support them as they plan and start their new ventures.

Peter Zak: You have been involved in a number of entrepreneurship related projects on campus and even written an “Entrepreneurship@MIT” guide. How does the new Center fit in with the rest of the entrepreneurial offerings at MIT?

Joost Bonsen: The entrepreneurial culture of MIT ensures there are many different venture activities, including both more formal offices as well as student-run clubs. The Sloan-based Entrepreneurship Center, the Engineering-based Deshpande Center, the central Technology Licensing Office and Venture Mentoring Service, the student-run MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition and the Innovation and Venture Capital & Private Equity clubs are all examples of this, as is the MIT Enterprise Forum, hosted by MIT’s vibrant Alumni Association. Most of us work with one another, however, and together we create a rich support network for our students and faculty entrepreneurs, as well as alumni and friends. Historically, most of the MIT entrepreneurial efforts have been about supporting and encouraging high technology ventures serving wealthy markets, mostly in developed countries.

But MIT has a growing number of efforts in the area of international development, inventing solutions and serving the rest of humanity beyond rich country borders. Together with Professor Alex “Sandy” Pentland, I started the joint MIT Media Lab-Sloan School class on Developmental Entrepreneurship in 2001. Our goal was to help the many inventive development innovators to figure out how to actually build the organizations to deploy those inventions everywhere. Such deployment is a business problem, one where planning and building an organization is critical. We have had tremendous interest in this class and even spawned a few alumni startup companies. Our experience with the class is substantially what inspired scaling up and creating our new Legatum Center.

I do want to emphasize how important it is for us to be plugged into a larger MIT International Development Network. This means connecting with Amy Smith and colleagues in the International Development Initiative and D-Lab, with Alison Hynd and the IDEAS Competition, with Sally Susnowitz and the Public Service Center, our DUSP colleagues running the International Development Group, with MIT Sloan colleagues teaching the Global Entrepreneurship Lab, and many more. The problems of our planet are far too large for any of us to solve alone.

Peter Zak: In your book Howtoons, you teach kids practical and problem solving skills to prove that the world at large is infinitely more exciting than anything happening on the TV. Is technology entrepreneurship, the kind practiced at MIT, a bit like that, encouraging the grown-ups to learn, invent, explore the world and create something out of nothing?

Joost Bonsen: Yes indeed. I like to say that our Howtoons book targets “kids of all ages” to show them How To build things via cartoons, because I believe we all benefit from exercising our creativity and inventiveness, adults too. Similarly, the entrepreneurial ethos is something within all of us, but often it needs to be encouraged and nurtured and helped to thrive. Too often people don’t yet realize what they’re capable of. It’s our role and responsibility as educators to help others realize the possibilities, to educate them about entrepreneurial pathways, and to connect them with the larger enterprise support network.

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