Hands-on Innovation

BU opens BUild Lab: IDG Capital Student Innovation Center

BU has launched a University-wide initiative to give all of its students, whether they’re studying science and engineering, the arts and humanities, business, or communication, opportunities to learn and engage in creative problem solving and hands-on innovation.

Funded by a partnership of the University and a group of alumni, BU has started the new initiative, called Innovate@BU, with support of $20 million for the first 10 years. BU has also opened a 6,000-square-foot home and student hub for Innovate@BU called the BUild Lab: IDG Capital Student Innovation Center, in recognition of lead support from IDG Capital and its CEO, University trustee Hugo Shong (COM’87, GRS’90). The BUild Lab is a place where students can connect with advisors, find funding sources, collaborate with other students on projects, and get help with matters from design and prototyping to legal advice and marketing.

Robert A. Brown, University president, views Innovate@BU as an essential part of preparing students to navigate a workplace that is being rapidly transformed by start-ups, big data, robotics, and artificial intelligence. To succeed in the new economy, he says, young people will need to be “self-motivated, self-directed, and self-actuated” and to have this same combination of skills and mind-set to search for creative solutions to societal problems and to create new enterprises that benefit society.