
MIT Sandbox invites 11,000 students to innovate - gwintrob
http://news.mit.edu/2016/mit-sandbox-invites-students-to-innovate-0125
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kctess5
MIT student here. I heard about this recently, and looked into it a bit as an
interesting way to get some funding.

First of all, it's not like every participant gets 25K. Getting that level of
funding would take some serious doing. It looks like 1-5K is more likely.
Additionally, there are milestones, meetings, course requirements, and a whole
lot of work required to get any significant funding. This might not be so bad
for many early stage startups, but as a full time MIT student, taking on the
extra workload is daunting.

In my opinion, it's not worth it. I am paying ~30K PER SEMESTER to be at this
place, so I'm doing my best to focus all of my attention on learning my craft
and jumpstarting my career. 25K sounds nice and is definitely nothing to scoff
at, but in the broad scale it's a drop in the bucket, and requires getting all
tied up in MIT's red tape (and also "Students who receive +$5K in funding will
be encouraged to give back to the Fund or MIT"). There are easier ways to go
about getting 1 to 25K in strings attached seed funding as an MIT student. The
mentorship is potentially a good benefit, but I already receive mentorship
from my professors.

I'm sure there are some students who might benefit from this, but I'm not
convinced.

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rgbrenner
speaking of getting tied up.. I wonder how this program applies to MIT's
intellectual property policy:
[http://web.mit.edu/policies/13/13.1.html](http://web.mit.edu/policies/13/13.1.html)

Quote:

 _ownership of Intellectual Property developed by faculty, students, staff,
and others participating in MIT programs, including visitors, with the
significant use of funds or facilities administered by MIT will vest with
MIT._

From my reading of the policy.. it sounds like if you accept this small sum
(1-5K), MIT gets the IP rights to everything you make. Good deal for MIT.

If they own the name (trademark) of your project; the content on your website
and marketing materials; copyright on your code; patents... you're basically
working for MIT for $1k.

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vulpino
Official website: [https://sandbox.mit.edu/](https://sandbox.mit.edu/)

Apparently Sam Altman is holding a talk/Q&A there on the 13th. It's an
intriguing concept - I'm not aware of any similar programs at other colleges.

~~~
rocky1138
It's similar to Velocity at UW:
[http://velocity.uwaterloo.ca/](http://velocity.uwaterloo.ca/)

~~~
pmalynin
And my university (UAlberta) is having trouble with people graduating in CS,
because within an hour all of higher level courses were booked so people can't
take the courses they need to graduate, some people are forced to take a year
off among other things.

~~~
iamcreasy
I thought in most universities, the higher you are (Senior/junior) you get
early/priority registration period, and it makes sense.

I find it strange not to have it.

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rocky1138
This is really neat except there's no information on how to sign up.

