By Alex Kais Date：05 / 09 / 2017

This September, MIT’s widely popular Bootcamp series will come to Taipei City. Labeled Beyond Food and organized in cooperation with the Taiwanese Haoshi Foundation, the event will see participants explore innovate startup solutions to food-related issues together with scholars from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

The MIT Beyond Food Bootcamp, which is the first to take place outside of the United States, accepts applications on the official website until July 1. The event will be preceded by a two-day Taiwan-exclusive Mini Bootcamp in May.

Additionally, famed MIT professor Sanjay Sarma’s Professional Education course will also be held in Taipei. The innovation and entrepreneurship-focused program is happening this August.

Global innovation at the heart of MIT’s educational mission

MIT’s Bootcamp was already introduced to a broader audience in Taiwan thanks to an earlier article by Business Next back in April. Shared widely over the internet, the news piece piqued the curiosity of readers, with many expressing interest in participating in similar events themselves.

The Office of Digital Learning has already announced that the Beyond Food Bootcamp will be held in Taiwan later this year. “It is a great pleasure and I hope we will have a great event,” MIT's Vice President for Open Learning Sanjay Sarma says, who will be visiting Taiwan himself as part of his internationally acclaimed Radical Innovation course.

The Beyond Food event marks the next step in MIT’s Bootcamp series, which through its international expansion will take the school’s own innovation-focused approach to education overseas.

As Sarma puts it, the renowned academic institution “has been global for over 150 years, and has always really cared about innovation.” Coming to Taiwan, then, is but a logical consequence of their educational mission.

MIT Bootcamps: Drinking from the firehose

The main rationale behind the Bootcamp concept is to offer the interested public an opportunity where they can immerse themselves in the learning environment at MIT.

Studying at the private university, which boasts over 85 Nobel Laureates and whose researchers are responsible for breakthroughs such as the World Wide Web standard or flight recorders, was once famously described by former president Jerome Wiesner as a “drinking from the firehose” experience.

The Bootcamps replicate this by offering short and intense courses with marathon-like lectures and lively discussion sessions. As of now, these Bootcamps have already taken place five times under the Global Entrepreneurship Bootcamp banner. Structured around the principle of “mens et manus,” or learning by doing, the Entrepreneurship Bootcamps have trained participants in how to take their startup to the next level, be it by developing their ideas, international networking, or pitching their vision to investors.

Now, the series is branching out into other fields as part of a newly-introduced thematic Bootcamp approach. The first installment, centered on the internet of things (IoT), will take place at MIT in Boston between May 29 and June 3.

According to the official website, the event is designed to teach participants “how to apply connectivity” in order to overcome big challenges with “tiny computers.” Moreover, the IoT Bootcamp not only introduces many of MIT’s leading technologies, but also instructs students on how to meet the increasingly complex demands of global markets.

Popularizing sustainable foodstuffs: Haoshi Foundation

The Beyond Food Bootcamp in Taiwan is another first of its kind in the MIT series. Additionally, the event also sees the university continue its engagement on the island.

According to Managing Director of Professional Education Bhaskar Pant, MIT already in 2016 entered a cooperation with the Taiwanese Executive Yuan on a Smart City curriculum.

The initiation of Beyond Food actually comes courtesy of the newly-founded Taiwanese Haoshi Foundation. Still in its early stages, the foundation aims to encourage the creation of food-

centered startups to overcome our dependence on processed and environmentally-problematic foodstuffs. According to the official website, their ultimate goal is to popularize healthier and more sustainable eating habits for consumers in Taiwan and abroad.

In line with this goal, the MIT Beyond Food Bootcamp will focus on the three fields

of sustainability,transparency, and health.

Together with specialists from the renowned research institution, participants will explore how revolutionary new means of harvesting and recycling can render food production and consumption environmentally responsible and beneficial to individual health.

Instructors at the MIT Beyond Food Bootcamp not only include international academics such as the aforementioned Prof. Sarma or Erdin Beshimov, but also industry specialists connected to the university. For instance, Demeter’s CEO Vimala Palaniswamy, Sourcemap’s Leonardo Bonanni, as well as Manus Biosynthesis COO Jeff Anderson are all expected to give lectures.

Similar to preceding MIT Bootcamps, participants will immerse themselves in a condensed curriculum that introduces new approaches and technologies to them. The international quality of the event will further give them a chance to build global networks and teach them how to develop their startup from the ground up.

Finally, the week-long course will conclude with a competition where participants are going to pitch their ideas to investors.

Mini Bootcamp, Professional Education, and Beyond Food

The first part of the MIT Beyond Food Bootcamp will consist of a Taiwan-exclusive Mini Bootcamp. Taking place in Taipei between May 12-13 and offering free registration, this stage prepares interested participants for the main event in September.

In August, then, MIT’s Professional Education course will take place in Taiwan under the guidance of Professor Sanjay Sarma. According to Prof. Sarma, his class will enable students to develop innovation and entrepreneurship-focused states of mind by going beyond the superficiality of buzzwords.

Although the event is invitation-only, interested readers can contact the Haoshi Foundation at Hello@hao-shi.org to be considered.

The main event, the MIT Beyond Food Bootcamp, will take place from September 10 to 15. The final deadline for individual applications is July 1, but those hoping for financial support should apply by June 1. The whole application process is English-only.

According to the official website, applicants have four weeks to complete the multi-stage application. First, they need to submit their demographic information online, which is then supplemented by uploading a video introducing themselves and their vision. Those chosen to move on to round three will then be interviewed by MIT staff, which decides about their eligibility to participate in the Beyond Food Bootcamp.

Those interested in participating can begin submitting their information at the event’s main webpage