On the week of Sept. 25, the school added a new club, MIT Launch, sponsored by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The purpose is to provide support to high schools students during the school year to help grow entrepreneurial skills and mindsets by launching startup companies.

Started by Geeth Tunugutla, junior, and sponsored by technology department chair Mr. John Madden, the goal of the club is to create a real start-up company with teams of roughly five students.

“I applied to the MIT summer program,[but] I did not get in. Twenty people got accepted out of thousands. They sent an email to [rejected] applicants [asking] if they wanted to start this club at school,” Tunugutla said. “[MIT explained that at] the end of this club, you would have the means to [create] a start-up business and [make] an actual profit.” 

Everything about the club is student oriented. Students raise funds themselves and do most of the work. However, MIT Launch does provide business experts to help students along the way through lessons.

“Most of us in the club have taken a wide variety of business classes, so the lessons MIT provides are [useful] reviews,” Tunugutla said.

The goal at the end of the year is for MIT to take the business idea and pitch it so that it can be funded as a real company. The theme each product has to center around is how to improve a problem that students often face educationally.

“We have to make a website [and] do everything a real company would do, [including] talking up sponsorships. At the end, we have a company,” Tunugutla said.