Year In Review
Learning in Action
By
“I want to make it my life’s work to use technology to improve people’s lives,” says Apolline Deroche, MFin ’22, founder and CEO of Cappella, a startup developing an app that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to generate soothing sounds for infants and translate their cries for parents.
During her first year at MIT Sloan, Deroche enrolled in the Entrepreneurship Lab (E-Lab), one of more than 15 Action Learning labs. Through these labs, students embody the Institute motto of “mens et manus,” or “mind and hand,” by bringing their classroom learnings to address real management opportunities and challenges presented by host companies.
Donors to MIT through the MIT Sloan Annual Fund, including those who join the Dean’s Circle, give students access to Action Learning labs and empower those students to make a difference in communities as close as Cambridge or halfway across the world.
“Students have the opportunity to work with cutting-edge startup ventures on their most pressing issues—gaining invaluable exposure to entrepreneurship and direct access to founders solving some of the world’s most pressing problems,” says Kit Hickey, MBA ’18 (Senior Lecturer and Entrepreneur in Residence).
I’m so grateful to MIT Sloan. Otherwise, I don’t know if I would have ever given my dreams a chance.
Becca Souza (Director, Action Learning) adds, “Our goal for students is to reflect on these experiences and use what they learn for their personal and professional growth.”
Deroche’s E-Lab group partnered with BioSens8, a biotechnology company specializing in small, noninvasive medical devices. Every week, the student team met with BioSens8 CEO and Co-Founder Uroš Kuzmanović to identify unmet needs and value propositions for a progesterone biosensor the startup was working on.
“Those weekly discussions were truly a highlight for me. The data and ultimate report we put together laid the groundwork and confidence for BioSens8’s entry into women’s health,” says Kuzmanović. “I made connections with brilliant people on the team, like Apolline, whom I keep in touch with today. Seeing her take the next step to create impact herself with Cappella has been exciting to follow.”
A longtime admirer of entrepreneurship and those who practice it, Deroche quickly realized that she, too, could do what Kuzmanović and other startup founders like him did.
Students have the opportunity to work with cutting-edge startup ventures on their most pressing issues—gaining invaluable exposure to entrepreneurship and direct access to founders solving some of the world’s most pressing problems.
“If he can do it, I can do it, too,” she says. “I had no idea how to start from a blank page at the time, so I feel like Entrepreneurship Lab really taught me how to start from a blank page.”
Additional entrepreneurship classes like Entrepreneurial Founding and Teams with Hickey and Erin L. Scott (Senior Lecturer, Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Strategic Management) and New Enterprises reinforced Deroche’s newfound determination and helped her cultivate the ideas that would eventually become Cappella.
“I’m so grateful to MIT Sloan. Otherwise, I don’t know if I would have ever given my dreams a chance,” says Deroche, who returned to E-Lab last spring with Cappella as a host company.
The Action Learning community is especially thankful for the generosity of alumni, donors, and friends like you who are committed to supporting students in the classroom, and beyond, through the MIT Sloan Annual Fund.
