Wafaa Arbash was a Brandeis University grad student from Syria majoring in conflict resolution when she founded WorkAround, a company that helps U.S. firms engage refugee talent worldwide via the Internet. She is also the winner of several student pitchoff competitions, including our own 2017 Beantown Throwdown.

Now Serving Refugees Online

Established in 1978, MIT Enterprise Forum (MITEF) is one of the oldest entrepreneurial-support organizations in the world. These podcasts are produced by the Cambridge Chapter. The podcasts compliment the programs held in Cambridge, Massachusetts. These in-person programs bring together startup founders, investors, industry leaders, service providers, and the tech-curious to inform, connect and coach the early-stage technology entrepreneur.

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In this podcast, Hamilton Brook Smith Reynolds Principal Tim Meagher talks with SweatWorks  Founder and CEO, Mohammed Iqbal. 







SweatWorks is a design development agency focused on delivering bespoke digital products to the fitness industry. When they first started in 2012 wearables were in their infancy (the pre-Apple Watch days), but the market for digital fitness products has exploded since. 







Tim and Mohammed cover a lot of things in this podcast; from the technology drivers for his company to how the COVID19 pandemic has changed the fitness market. Mohammed also provides this sage advice for other founders:







“You know what you know really well, but you really don’t know much about anything else. I learned that pretty quickly, but it took time. In fact, I think I’m still learning.”



For entrepreneurs who have to wear many hats early on, knowing the value of your time and where your capability limits are, especially as you scale up your business, is really important.



For more nuggets of entrepreneurial advice and to learn more about Mohammed’s startup story, have a listen below!





Startup Story: SweatWorks  Founder and CEO, Mohammed Iqbal [Podcast]


In this podcast, we chat with Kashif Hasnie, CEO of Air Traffic Awareness (ATA) along with Susan Gonzalez and Larry Hill, two of Kashif’s MIT Enterprise Forum Cambridge Mentors. 



Located in Kansas City, Missouri (home of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation), ATA is engineering the future of in-flight safety, their technology is helping pilots to make more efficient decisions to avoid midair collisions. Flying a private plane is nearly as deadly as driving a car. Collisions are among the top causes of aircraft accidents in the world. Under the Visual Flight Rules (VFR), a pilot only knows of other aircraft in their area by looking out the window. ATA’s patent-pending technology solution, SAGA, increases safety in the cockpit.



Some of the topics we cover in this podcast include:



* What makes Kansas City a great place for a startup? * What drew Susan and Larry to what Kashif was working on at Air Traffic Awareness?* What were the biggest challenges/issues the team identified when they first met and how did they address them?* What’s ATA’s biggest need currently? [Short answer - pilots to test the alpha! If you’re a pilot reach out to them!]* For people out there trying to find mentors – what makes a mentor/mentee relationship work?







If you’re thinking about applying to the MIT Enterprise Forum Cambridge Mentor program (applications are due November 16!) this podcast will give you an idea of the caliber of Mentors in our network as well as the startups we attract.  



Enjoy!

Engineering the Future of In-Flight Safety: Air Traffic Awareness

In this episode, we (once again) teamed up with our podcast partners at Failure - the Podcast to chat with Startup Spotlight 2020 Week #1 winners Cloud Agronomics.

Have you ever looked out over the Midwest farmlands while taking a cross country flight?  Just another pretty view, you ask? The guests of this podcast, Mark Tracy, CEO and Alex Zhuk, Co-Founder, think not.

A picture can be worth a whole lot and a cornfield from on high is the real money shot.  Imagine, if you could identify rows of maze ripening ahead of schedule or under siege by the infamous corn borer. (Yes, unlike earwigs, corn borers do really like corn).  Yields might go up and costs down.  And, while most city dwellers can size up a garden in seconds, gauging the health of a mega-acre factory farm is another matter entirely.

Cloud Agronomics is a geospatial imaging and analytics company creating a living map of global agriculture. They provide next-generation analytics on crop performance that changes the way the industry looks at crop yields, pricing, and other critical decisions related to food. Cloud Agronomics wants to enable the digital revolution towards sustainable food production.

Join us and the team from Failure - the Podcast in one of the few level-headed discussions they’ve had since college with the management and science gurus behind this very interesting startup.

The View from On High with Cloud Agronomics

Marc Filerman Is the CEO at the German Accelerator Life Sciences in Cambridge, Massachusetts and is a health tech entrepreneur and intrapreneur.

This means that he develops markets, gets involved in commercialization and accelerates innovation for technology-enabled healthcare products and services.

Marc has a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he focused on product design as an undergraduate and on artificial intelligence for his graduate work. Marc also serves as a mentor here at MIT Enterprise Forum Cambridge (next cohort coming up soon, view info here).

During this podcast, brought to us by Susan Glovsky, principal at Hamilton Brook Smith Reynolds, we learn a little bit more about Marc, the German Accelerator Life Sciences, important things non-US companies trying to enter the US Market should know, and much more.

Have a listen!

Entrepreneur Success Through Involvement in Local and International Organizations

Hanan Lepek is the CEO of Senecio Robotics, an Israeli startup that’s using AI and robotics to help rid the world of disease-carrying mosquitos (or as our podcast partners at Failure the Podcast call them, "skeeters.")

Hanan was selected to present at our Week #2 Startup Spotlight 2020 virtual showcase and won the popular vote for his pitch for this innovative startup that addresses one of the key challenges in the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT) (which, according to some reading I did over on the World Health Organization (WHO) website before the Spotlight event is a form of insect birth control).

The challenge with SIT is to develop the supporting technology to accelerate the sex sorting (so only non-biting males will be released) and to automate the packaging process and the large scale release capabilities.

So that's where Senecio Robotics focused its efforts. They've developed a multi-platform solution, utilizing deep learning for the sex classification together with robotics and automation for the sorting and packaging, to the controlled release.


In this well-timed podcast (given that Massachusetts is expecting a very high rate of mosquito-borne EEE cases), that according to our hosts, tested the limits of both Skype and Bluetooth, you'll learn more about Hanan and Senecio Robotics and the important work they're doing.

Enjoy!

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