Beehive Cooperative: MIT's Summer Business Incubator Hums

MIT students and alumni have a new place to turn great ideas into promising business startups. This summer some 40 teams, all involving at least one MIT student, tapped into the Beehive Cooperative, MIT's newest and largest startup accelerator.

This Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship initiative provides a dynamic and supportive environment for early-stage companies. The heart of the hive is 5,000 square feet in E52, the site of office space and work tables, plus the buzz of brainstorming sessions, guest lectures, advice, and camaraderie. Budding companies include efforts to develop art works that generate solar energy, a twitter-like Q&A platform for management issues, and a universal design watch band attractive to people with and without vision problems.

The Buzz, a video profile series, introduces the startups. Here's one sample:

Rallyt is an independent global online platform for political movements. Current web technologies don't work well for political advocacy, says cofounder Eugene Feldman MBA '12.

"We are trying to build a social movement from the ground up that focuses on political movements, as opposed to on individuals. It will give individuals a very safe and private way to engage politically in the cause that they are passionate about." The group hopes to get a prototype to users later in August, just in time for the fall elections.

The Beehive Cooperative also provided an alternative to returning to California where Feldman and his two Rallyt colleagues are from. MIT provides guidance and mentorship and the young company does not lose control to investors, he says. "For an early company like us, it's probably a perfect start."

Want to know more? Read The Tech article on the Beehive Cooperative.