Sandbox

Seed funding, mentorship, and tailored entrepreneurship education empowering student innovators.

MIT Sandbox provides seed funding, mentorship, and tailored entrepreneurship education that empowers student innovators to explore ideas, take risks, and prepare to launch.

This program enables any MIT student inspired to solve a problem with an innovative solution to learn and experience entrepreneurship.

Each year, Sandbox opens the door to entrepreneurship for hundreds of undergraduate students, master’s students, and PhDs. It provides a launchpad where they can strategize, experiment, and grow. The program runs continuously with three application cycles: fall, spring, and summer. Each cohort is comprised of 350+ active Sandbox teams and 750+ individuals.

Entering teams participate in group mentoring, where they are introduced to a framework of foundational entrepreneurship and business concepts. Teams are encouraged to focus on preliminary market research and refine their problem definition and solution.