DesignX

MITdesignX is an academic program in the MIT School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P) dedicated to design innovation and entrepreneurship. We empower students, faculty and researchers to build new business ventures and forward-thinking solutions designed to address critical challenges facing the future of cities and the human environment.

MITdesignX provides resources to build new solutions, systems and ventures. Successful ventures exist at the intersection of design, business, science and technology. Interdisciplinary teams of creative thinkers and makers fast-track the development of their innovations and launch ventures into the marketplace.

SA+P students in Architecture, Urban Studies & Planning, Media Lab, Center for Real Estate, and Art Culture & Technology are among the most creative and entrepreneurial at MIT. They have started over 560 firms that are innovating changes in cities and the built environment worldwide. DesignX is an entrepreneurial accelerator for student ventures that aims to transform the built environment, media, and design. DesignX can help you to launch your ideas into a new venture, design process, or product while you are in school.

The heart of DesignX is an academic workshop in which participants receive financial support to develop their ventures, mentorship by experienced entrepreneurs, and a program of lectures, visits to innovative firms, and networking opportunities.

Open to teams and individuals, DesignX offers the tools, capital, skills, and network to create and launch new ventures and innovative approaches to architecture, planning, media, real estate, and art. DesignX is organized to integrate with a student’s core academic program, and thesis (with advisor permission), beginning in January 2017.

The fields that make up the School of Architecture + Planning offer a myriad of unique approaches and skills to urban problem-solving and entrepreneurship. While in training to be designers, planners, artists, technologists, and developers, our students learn what has been done in the past – but also generate ideas for the future. DesignX is intended to be a launching pad for the SA+P community; to help students, and even faculty and staff, move from idea to tangible action.

DesignX seeks to empower and aid innovation in the built environment through a rigorous platform of research. We are asking challenging questions about the future of the built environment, social responsibility and cities. Research from Research Scientists, Postdocs and PhD Candidates leads explorations at the intersection of entrepreneurship, culture, technology, and innovation. We work by collaborating with real entrepreneurs, academics in entrepreneurship on projects and pioneering new approaches to understanding urban innovation that impacts cities.