MIT and Accenture Convergence Initiative for Industry and Technology

In October 2020, the MIT School of Engineering and Accenture, announced a five-year collaboration that will further advance learning and research through new business convergence insights in technology and innovation. The MIT and Accenture Convergence Initiative for Industry and Technology aims to draw faculty, researchers, and students from across MIT.

Ongoing collaboration focuses on the following:

(*) Advancing a portfolio of research projects that address technology and industry convergence in the near and long-term. This includes MIT research that is data-driven that connects to topics including AI, knowledge curation, and talent.
(*) Providing five annual fellowships awarded to graduate students working on research in industry and technology convergence who are underrepresented, including by race and ethnicity and by gender.
(*) Establishing multiple educational programs that bring learnings to the broader Accenture community by leveraging MIT’s most innovative digital learning methodologies; and opportunities for the MIT student community to engage with Accenture thought leaders.

The Initiative has selected three new research projects that will receive support from the initiative. The research projects aim to accelerate progress in meeting complex societal needs through new business convergence insights in technology and innovation.

(1) Accelerating the journey to net zero with industrial clusters (Jessika Trancik)

(2) Eliminating childhood obesity (Anette "Peko" Hosoi)

(3) Generating innovative organizational configurations and algorithms for dealing with the problem of post-pandemic employment (Thomas Malone )