BUS604: Innovation and Sustainability

Background

MassRobotics is a nonprofit innovation coworking facility that has been active in the robotics sector for a number of years; it launched its coworking space in response to the needs and particulars of start-ups innovating in the robotics sector. Its goal is to help start-ups in the robotics industry accelerate their business and make robotics more accessible to all. Located in Boston, one of the world's leading robotics centers, MassRobotics aims to be an innovation hub for the New England robotics community, pulling together the existing players and fostering the next generation of robotics start-ups. The space provides robotics start-ups with the space and resources needed to develop, prototype, test, and commercialize products and solutions. At the same time, it builds connections and working relations between the start-ups and potential investors, services providers, and corporations to better guarantee success.

In Essence

MassRobotics provides a comprehensive number of services. In addition to being a coworking space with access to desk and office space, this accelerator provides industry-specific services such as access to prototyping labs with a diversity of fabrication tools, machines, and testing space. It promotes cost efficiencies by sharing services such as prototyping and testing space, maintenance support, IT, and security. The CCS is very active in growing its network so it can better serve the start-ups with business services, investor introductions, and customer acquisitions. MassRobotics has already fostered relations between start-ups and corporations that have served to inform product development and determined the successful outcome of the product design. It is active in creating acquisition opportunities and enabling technology licensing, seeing them as key drivers of innovation. It is also active in building synergies with the robotics entrepreneurial community in the city, including academic institutions (such as labs at MIT and Harvard), organizations, and companies. MassRobotics organizes a series of events to introduce robotics corporations and other entities to the space and the potential of the start-ups to better engender future collaborations.

Impact

MassRobotics contributes to fostering industrial innovation by supporting robotics ventures and their entrepreneurs and innovators. Strategically located in Boston, where there is a distinctive robotics ecosystem, it continues to attract a number of robotics start-ups. MassRobotics makes a competitive selection among these start-ups and helps drive their innovations through access to industry-specific tools and service, thereby optimizing the cost of doing business. It also hopes to inspire the next generation of innovators through in-house, hands-on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) collaborations. It fosters the existing robotics ecosystem for academic, private, and public key stakeholders by providing a space for these exchanges to take place. It specifically looks to strengthen intra-industry collaborations and build viable businesses by enabling acquisition opportunities and technology licensing. Through its strong connections with both the private sector and academic institutions, MassRobotics is able to create a hub for innovation in the robotics sector and help generate ideas and products that are more accessible to all.

In Practice

Project in Focus

Optimus Ride is an MIT spin-off company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It develops self-driving technologies focused on providing safe, sustainable, and equitable mobility solutions. The company is designing a fully autonomous system for electric vehicle fleets, using 30 years of interdisciplinary university research in self-driving technologies, electric vehicles, and mobility-on-demand systems to develop it. The team has a decade of industrial and entrepreneurial experience that combines manufacturing robots, urban design, and shared vehicle fleet management.