Dr Kurtis Irwin reflects on his visit to MIT Boston

Dr Kurtis Irwin is just back from a week in Boston at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, completing the MIT Sloan School of Management Entrepreneurship Development Programme as part of his UKRI Future leaders Fellowship. We caught up with Kurtis to hear about his trip.

Tell us more about why you were in Boston ? 

I was in Boston to undertake an entrepreneurship development programme with MIT Sloan School of Management, funded through my Future Leader Fellowship award from UKRI. The program provides a disciplined process to not only develop new business but to realise new ideas. It was interesting to gain an understanding on how I can continue to help CATAGEN grow and scale with both current and future technologies, but also how to keep us innovative as we continue to clean and decarbonise the air.

What is MIT ? 

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is one of the most renowned universities in the world, in fact it was ranked number one university for the 11^th straight year by QS.

What were you doing during the week? 

It was a 6-day crash course to understand a 24-step process for disciplined entrepreneurship, there was a theory based section while also a practical aspect to the course where as a group of 6 of us developed a business idea right through to pitch to “potential angel investors”.  We developed an idea for a software, web-based platform to help aid with employee attrition.

What was the key takeaways? 

I have a much better understanding of the requirements of a business, understanding the problem and how to apply a solution, understanding a go to market strategy and then how to develop a product plan and execute. My key takeaway was how important the team and culture within the team is as well as the constant ability to be flexible and agile.

What’s next for the FLF ? 

I have already started my next course through MIT in Technical Project Management, this is a six month course to help me understand managing large scale projects with different strategies from start to finish. Alongside this I am working on the overriding project focusing on the motorcycle industry and how we can help understand the upcoming legislation changes to aid the OEMs for a cost effective solution.