Student-Run Events
Conferences – Covering the Cutting Edge
Conferences organized by MIT Sloan clubs grow in stature every year. Here are just a few of the many forums offered:
MIT Business In Gaming
The MIT Business in Gaming (MIT BIG) Conference is the largest student-run gaming conference on the East Coast. More than 300 professionals and 100 students from top universities attend to hear 40 industry executives and speakers during the four-day event.
The MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference
The MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference attracts more than 1,000 attendees, and usually has a waitlist of 400 people. The conference provides a forum for industry executives, leading researchers, and students to discuss the increasing role of analytics as an integral part of the business of sports.
MBA Media and Entertainment Conference
The annual MBA Media and Entertainment Conference (MEC) brings together five top business schools to organize the premier event for business school students, focusing on the media, entertainment, and technology industries. Speakers and panels cover all aspects of the industry — from entertainment, finance and venture capital investing to marketing, digital ditribution, and gaming.
MIT Latin American Conference
The MIT Latin American Conference, attended by nearly 400 students, alumni, faculty, and business and government leaders, addresses topics that are shaping the future of the Latin American region, including entrepreneurship, sustainability, politics, and leadership.
MIT Africa Business Conference
The first MIT Africa Business Conference was organized in 2011 by the Africa Business Club. Distinguished speakers included Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, World Bank managing director & MIT alumnus (MCP '78, PhD '81); His Excellency Dr. Amani Abeid Karume, former president of Zanzibar; and John Waibochi, winner of the $1 million Nokia 2010 Growth Economy Venture Challenge.
MIT Sloan Women in Management Conference
The MIT Sloan Women in Management (SWIM) Conference Conference gives the women (and men) of MIT an opportunity to learn from seasoned professionals about careers in different industries, individual leadership styles in action, and the ways in which top-level executives balance their personal and professional priorities.
“We’re very interdisciplinary. Among the faculty in the group are an economist, a political scientist, a sociologist, and an industrial relations specialist. We’ve always made a big effort to be open to a variety of perspectives, but also to go beyond being open to them, to want to bring them in, because it makes for a richer environment.”
"After we gave our recommendations, the great part was that the very next day the CEO was in the boardroom implementing them with his top vice presidents."
“One of the reasons I came to Sloan was because I wanted to be at a top MBA institution worldwide. But I also wanted access to working with the latest innovations and the highest technology that was coming out of the MIT labs.”
“We are very much an action-learning environment. The way to learn leadership is not only through reading cases, not only through learning theory — in fact we don’t want people to regurgitate the theory. We want people to take theory and to live it, use it.”
“For 35 years, we’ve been studying how companies get value from information. … We try to help organizations take a more holistic view of what they are trying to do.”
“I knew about American business, but not enough about what’s really become a global economy. … You can read about it all you want, but there’s no substitute for being there and seeing the context and seeing how completely different these [other countries] are.”
“I love being in a place that is such a nexus of people and ideas — people coming to learn something new and to define themselves. Being a part of that process is a real honor and a real gift.”
"The classroom itself is filled with so much collective brain power . . . it's obvious that I'm caught up in a room full of 124 of the brightest, most curious people from around the world."
“Because of the diversity of our backgrounds, when we hit the ground in Tanzania it almost was a natural play where different people assume different roles.”
“It was really rewarding that they wanted to know what we thought. We left there being fairly certain that they will do some of the things that we suggested.”
“At MIT Sloan you have a lot of opportunities to explore entrepreneurship. Especially in a place like Kampala where you have a lot of development, entrepreneurship can be very exciting.”
“I came to Sloan because of its high rankings within the sustainability community, specifically the professors. The S-Lab class itself is part of what drew me to Sloan. And the reason I came to business school was to learn the business speak that really is what connects with people."
“The conditions in the neighborhoods we were visiting were different than what we realized before getting there. Beyond that, what was surprising was that there weren’t surprises!”
“The assistant to the CEO was like our host mom while we were there. She arranged our housing for us, she took us out to her friend’s game farm, and we got driven around in 4x4s. She was just wonderful to meet, and we developed a personal as well as professional relationship with her.”
“These companies are really excited to work with MIT students.They reach out to the community to set up these projects and are great to work with. They give us access to all their resources and are very open to us.”
“As the world begins to rebuild its financial infrastructure from the ashes of this economic crisis, I believe MIT is primely positioned to play a leadership role in shaping the future through its research and educational programs.”
