Last Friday, the Accelerate program held its second Pitchfest.  This is where teams of students present their ideas for start-up businesses to a panel of judges who decide which teams will be funded and how much they should receive.  Fifteen groups stood up in Beatty 426 and explained their ideas, demonstrated prototypes, showed why they needed start-up funding, and asked for help to achieve their dreams.  The teams included 7 students from computer science and networking, 6 electromechanical engineering majors, 5 each from architecture and industrial design, 3 each from mechanical engineering and technology, construction management and management, 2 from interior design and biomedical engineering, 1 each from electrical engineering and civil engineering, and 6 team members who were not Wentworth students.  That’s a total of 42 team members and 11 different departments who spent time on a Friday evening talking about engineering, technology, design, science and management instead of partying (at least until 8:30).  At times, Beatty 426 was standing room only.

Over the past three years, several of my blog posts have talked about interdisciplinary project-based learning (IPBL).  Friday’s Pitchfest wasn’t a theoretical discussion of IPBL.  It was a clear demonstration of our students taking IPBL to heart in the guise of entrepreneurship.  The projects ranged from a harness that allows patients undergoing infusion treatment to have freedom and mobility, to a portable backpack speaker, to a new style of skateboard, to a storage device for nail polish, to a smart pump with an advanced insulin dosing algorithm.  Those were just the five ideas that were recommended for funding by the judges.  The judging panel included Sam Altschuler, a Wentworth corporator who founded a successful electronic manufacturing company, Jerry Cotellessa, an alumnus who currently works for Opera Solutions in the Cambridge Innovation Center, Nelson DeWitt, another alumnus who is a crowd-funding expert, Stefania Nappi Mallett, a corporator who is running her third start-up venture, Jim Woodward, who has been involved with eight successful start-ups including Iris Graphics, and David Zhou, the founder of ePowerhouse.  This is an impressive panel and the experience and insights gained from presenting to this group will stay with our students forever.

I know many of you wonder how to implement IPBL.  I think attending a future Pitchfest would show you the way.  Our students aren’t limited by the way things are or the way things should be.  They have ideas that they think are worth following, even though there’s no academic credit involved and the work they put into their projects is on top of everything else they have to do.  Many of the teams would benefit from the knowledge and experience that many of us could contribute to their projects.  It would probably only take an hour or two a week.  I encourage you to work with one of these teams to gain firsthand knowledge of how to put IPBL to work in academics.  It will take an open mind to see how to bring this energy and enthusiasm into the classroom in a very non-traditional way.

Kudos to Monique Fuchs, Associate Vice President for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and to Fred Driscoll, Dean of the College of Engineering and Technology, and to all of the co-ops, students and others who have made Accelerate a huge success in a very short period of time.  Wentworth is being seen by the innovation community in Boston as a major player because of their hard work.

This is a clear demonstration of the power of IPBL.

Best Regards,
Russ