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April 9th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda The World at Work is powered by GE. This new series highlights the people, projects and startups that are driving innovation and making the world a better place.
Name: MassChallenge.org
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Big Idea: MassChallenge is the largest startup accelerator in the world, working with 125 companies each year in an effort to catalyze a startup renaissance.
Why It’s Working: MassChallenge is mission-driven and works with “high-impact” startups. The accelerator doesn’t take equity in the companies it works with and it’s helped the startups raise more than $100 million and create 500 jobs.
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Boston native John Harthorne was heavily involved with startups during his undergrad years at MIT, and he’d been itching to get back to the startup world ever since, but debt, family and a new baby deterred him from doing so. He spoke of his passion for startups with a Bain and Company co-worker, Akhil Nigam — they knew Bain was a great place to work, but neither wanted to do consulting forever. Then, the world came crashing down with the recession of 2008, and experts were forecasting ten years of stagnation and an economy reminiscent of the Great Depression.
The prevailing wisdom at the time was that it was a horrible time to start a new business. But Harthorne and Nigam didn’t think that was the case.
The two men did “a lot of soul-searching” and realized that many companies were focused on value capture and driven by greed, which was why the economy had taken a turn for the worse. “Everyone had been sitting at the table and stuffing their faces without thinking about the next meal,” says Harthorne.
That mentality wasn’t going to work anymore. He and Nigam wanted to focus on value creation, driven by passion and a desire to have a social impact. For too long, value-generating startups had been relegated to basements, while value-capture companies occupied penthouses. So, Harthorne and Nigam decided to direct their efforts to startups, an underoptimized industry with growth and ingenuity that could maybe turn things around.
The idea for MassChallenge was born in 2008, during the worst of the recession, and the 501(c)(3) non-profit officially launched in May 2009. The accelerator accepts applications from “any startup, any industry, anywhere” — the only requirement is that the startup have a big-impact agenda to solve an important problem.
For example, one startup, Alkeus Pharmaceuticals, found a treatment for Stargardt’s disease, which causes blindness in 40,000 kids each year. The treatment will extend the vision of these children for up to 40 years, and because the disease is related to macular degeneration, it also has implications for the treatment — or at least, the delayed onset — of blindness in the elderly.
Other MassChallenge startups include HerCampus Media (an online magazine for college women), Cocomama Foods (an all-natural and gluten-free food startup), PK Clean (a clean energy company that turns landfilled plastic into oil) and Artvenue (a site that connects artists with local businesses that’ll showcase their work).
Each year, MassChallenge offers access to resources — from funding and office space to training and networking — to 125 startups without taking any equity. The goal is to address the seed-stage investment gap and fuel early startups until they get over the hump and have the momentum to scale independently. There are a lot of great ideas floating around, but few actually come to fruition — MassChallenge’s goal is to help startups to win. Its third annual competition is accepting applications now.
Series presented by GE
The World at Work is powered by GE. GE Works focuses on the people who make the things that move, power, build and help to cure the world.
Image courtesy of La Capoise Galerie
This story originally published on Mashable here.
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