Some 500 graduate students, faculty and researchers made their way to Lisbon on October 21, 2009 for “Meet MIT: A Student-to-Student Workshop on Entrepreneurship,” an intensive, half-day immersion in technology innovation and entrepreneurship designed to serve two purposes: to bring together students from the MIT Portugal Program and MIT to learn about entrepreneurship from invited speakers, faculty and researchers, and to challenge teams of these students to think on their feet and arrive at viable “go-to-market” strategies for various technologies.  Meeting and collaborating with MIT students and alumni at this first-of-its-kind MIT Portugal event – which was held at the Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (FCT-UNL) – were graduate students from FCT-UNL, the University of Minho, IST, ITQB (UNL) and UNL’s School of Economics.
Learning from Successful Entrepreneurs Several prominent technology entrepreneurs were on hand to share their own real-world experience in bringing technologies to the marketplace: Sarah Bird, founder and CEO of SaafWater; Antonio Camara, founder and CEO of YDreams; Nevan Hanumara, co-founder of Robopsy and an MIT PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering; Jonathan Harthorne, founder and CEO of MassChallenge; Richard Myrick, senior advisor to the MIT AgeLab; and José Salcedo, founder and CEO of Multiwave. Elevator Pitch Competition The buildup throughout the afternoon, though, was for the “elevator-pitch” competition, in which teams of five Portuguese students, together with one MIT student or alumnus, had one hour to prepare go-to-market strategies for various technologies that were announced at the conference. Each team then pitched their strategy to an expert jury.  The First Prize team receives their award from Fernando Santana, Vice-Dean of FCT-UNL First Prize (3,000 Euros) was awarded to a team whose presentation was for a three-dimensional robotic camera designed to be used inside buildings following disasters. Second Prize (1,500 Euros) went to a team whose presentation was on 3-D imaging for modeling the middle and inner ear for the purpose of designing next-generation hearing aids. And Third Prize (750 Euros) was presented to a team that devised a strategy for a design for personalized headphones. Prof. Manuel Nunes da Ponte, MIT Portugal Program Bioengineering Systems co-director and Professor, ITQB/UNL; Fernando Santana, Vice-Dean of FCT-UNL; and Prof. Charles Cooney, MIT Portugal Program faculty and Faculty Director of MIT’s Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation, developed the idea for the workshop. MIT’s Global Startup Workshop (GSW) was a co-organizer, and Caixa Geral de Depósitos, Portugal’s largest bank, was the chief sponsor. Meet MIT was organized by Prof. Fernanda Llussá, FCT-UNL; Marcus Dahlem, MIT Global Startup Workshop; Isa P. Monteiro, MIT Portugal Bioengineering PhD student; and Susana Barreiros of FCT-UNL. | 
