2020 Innovation Report 2020 Innovation Report capital firms, including , & Sierra Ventures, among others. teams that are admitted, they receive from funding a“Who’s Who” of Silicon Valleyventure the and Vice Chancellor for Research’s Office. SkyDeck ishighly selective. For thelucky few venture between Berkeley’s top-ranked College their of Engineering, HaasSchool of Business seed capital funds. UCBerkeley’s SkyDeck accelerator isanoteworthy caseinpoint. It’sajoint creating their own on-campus startupcompetitions, hackathons, accelerators, incubators and professional destiny. Shortly following, both public &private universities across theUSbegan of recently graduated students corporate and “expats” decided totake control of their own to democratize how bestpractices of innovation were taught,just asanincreasing number wave of tech startupaccelerators, inspired by pioneers Y-Combinator & , began In addition, asthegreat recession caused significantlayoffs from large corporations, a Educational & Tech Accelerators infusion of brainpower intotheseprofessions that continues toexist tothisday. related positions at thiskey historical inflection point. Asa result, itunleashed a massive managementbanking and consulting, startedtoshifttheir focus innovation- tohightech and For starters, many brightest, long of thebestand drawn tothehighly paid areas of investment An Infusion of Brainpower This created long-terms impacts on innovation aswe know it. banking financial crisis spiraled us intothe“great recession.” The launch of Apple’s iPhone democratized technology, while thesub-prime mortgage and is anespecially important year inflection and point for innovation based on two critical events. Professional Studies Management Division&Faculty, Brown University of School Professional Program &Faculty, Harvard University Berkeley Sutardja Center &Faculty, EngineeringLeadership Mike Grandinetti, Program Development Fellow UC TECHNOLOGY &HIGHEREDUCATION THE CONVERGENCE OFINNOVATION, way inwhich innovation istaught,startingin 2007,hasbeen profound. 2007 startup mentor board and member. Thechanges that have occurred inthe roles tech asaserial entrepreneur, innovation consultant, hackathon leader, most prestigious educational institutions, inaddition tomy simultaneous convergence asaProfessor, faculty member &mentor at some of theworld’s I’ve spent thelast25+years working at thisextraordinary point of 1 2020 Innovation Report high level of critical mass that the respected blog “Poets &Quants” now rates ranks and theTop many capstone projects from thesecourses lead toreal company formation. There issuch a experience. As aresult, innovation & courses are far more hands-on, and in career academic tenure track PhDs, wholack any real-world innovation or entrepreneurship practitioners have taken over therole of classroom instructor, withacommensurate decrease The studyof entrepreneurship innovation and on university campuses hasalsoshiftedasmore Incubation Program” offered three timesper year. Approximately 1500student teams have gone foster innovation across theuniversity.” Among itsmany offerings isa12-week “Venture campus. It’sstated mission is“tobring together students from Harvard’svarious schools to Harvard starteditsInnovation Lab in2011.It’sjust one of several innovation accelerators on programming expert and mentorship, despite thefact that itis“equityfree”. delivered twice per year, delivers sixmonths of extraordinaryvalue through world-class Technology, brings together theworld’s mostpromising Blockchain startups. Theprogram, The Berkeley Blockchain Xcelerator, offered by theSutardja Center of Entrepreneurship & Graduate Programs GrowingThe Importance of Entrepreneurship &Diversification of off-campus acceleratorsand tocontinue tomature their projects. to qualifyfor Many seedfunding. teams then move into both on campus complementary teams are required tocomplete acourse together inorder together both scientific commercially-focused and students. These MIT led theway Center, withitsDeshpande which for thefirst time brought as thetwo have fundamentally different principles entrepreneurship. –and “Hacking Medicine” hackathon in2013. world. Pillpack, acquired by Amazon for nearly $1BUSD, was born inMIT’s largest VR/AR hackathons, drawing 1,000+ participants from around the more often inpeak season. TheMITMedia Lab hashostedtheworld’s MIT hostshackathons on itscampus at least once per week, far and success of theInnovation Lab. are now available totheHarvard community hasexploded basedon the through thisprogram thus far. Thenumber of programs resources and that innovation –not tobeconfused withinvention – investigators researchers and totheprinciples of vitally important process of exposing principal formation of Tech Transfer Offices. the Thisbegan engineering &scientific research through the to institutionalize thecommercialization of their In addition, many research universities began Combining Research &Commercial Impact 2 2020 Innovation Report business, technology education and itself. will only help deliver abetter, smarter future for is thriving on university campuses, theseinitiatives and say:Suffice to Innovation around advanced technology Direct toConsumer models Warby Parker, Lola Harrys at and Wharton. Segment (just acquired by Twilio) at Robin MITtoBREX,Snapand Hood at Stanford toleading GoGoVan Next and at Berkeley toRent TheRunway, Catalant Tellus and at Harvard to on university campuses. Theserange from Data Bricks ,4DMolecular Therapeutics, Corelight , these examples, which isliterally thetipof theiceberg, thousands of startupshave been born I’ve had theprivilege of being involved ineach of theprograms described above. As aresult of jointly defined problems through the development of working models algorithms. and undergraduate graduate and students withglobal corporates federal and agencies tosolve Sutardja Center of Entrepreneurship &Technology. Itbrings together project teams of five experience toitsstudents. Thiscourse, whosemantra is“Demo or Die”, isalsooffered by the Analytics degree certificate and programs. TheBerkeley Data-X course offers hands-on institutions, new fields of study, including an explosion inMasters inData Science Business and Finally, asthegeneral MBA becomes increasingly commoditized except at themostprestigious the students have graduated. Stanford Harvard, and have raised hundreds of millions of dollars from top tier VCs even before Global MBA programs for Entrepreneurship. Many campus-born startups, especially those from 3