Harvard’s i-lab could buoy the entire region

“In a clear sign of the pent-up entrepreneurial energy that exists within the Harvard community, the lab hosts 65 businesses started by students and seven by alumni. By bringing together students and faculty from across the university, the lab has revealed the benefits of getting past the “every tub on its own bottom” approach that Harvard once took toward managing its disparate schools. A Harvard Law School graduate who co-founded a company called Vaxess told the Globe his colleagues came from the business school, the Kennedy School, and the chemistry department and never would have crossed paths without the i-lab.”

The I-lab illustrates Harvard’s recognition of two facts: 1) Innovation is not as much a part of the university’s DNA as a school like Stanford, for example; and 2) The decentralized graduate school system aka “every tub on its own bottom,” while brilliant for branding, is counterproductive for innovating.

- Jamaal