Harvard Institute of Politics to Launch New Startup Incubator Program

The Harvard Institute of Politics’ Student Advisory Committee unanimously voted on Monday to pilot a new program in fall 2024 designed to fund and mentor social impact startups led by undergraduates.

The program — titled the IOP Governance Lab — will provide training for 10 Harvard-based ventures in various stages of development and will culminate in a final pitch competition with a $1,500 winning prize. The IOP, which is the largest student-run organization at Harvard College with over 900 members, now boasts 16 programs with the addition of GovLab.

Dev S. Ahuja ’27, a SAC member who co-founded GovLab, said the program addresses a hole in the IOP’s program offerings.

“Within the IOP right now, we lack a space that is dedicated towards the intersection of entrepreneurship and politics,” Ahuja said. “But this is a field that is rapidly growing in popularity.”

In addition to funding, GovLab teams will receive mentorship from an “Entrepreneur-in-Residence” with startup experience, according to a plan presented Monday night. The SAC announced that Paulo Carvão, a fellow at the Advanced Leadership Initiative, will serve in this role for GovLab’s pilot run.

In an interview Wednesday, Carvão praised GovLab, calling it a “super important initiative.”

“The College doesn’t have a business degree and doesn’t necessarily kind of majors on entrepreneurship,” he said. “There’s a very active population that are majoring in adjacent areas, including government, that could benefit from this.”

Carvão added that in his role with GovLab, he hopes to create curriculum to teach social entrepreneurship, organize speaker events with established founders, and help “students crystalize their ideas and hopefully start some of their own initiatives.”

Zoe Yu ’27, a co-founder of GovLab and a Crimson Editorial editor, wrote in a statement that the program hopes to show that politics is “deeply steeped into everything that we do.”

“It’s expanding the ways that we see politics, the ways that we interact with it, and the ways that we build futures around it,” she wrote.

Yu said that though GovLab will officially begin next fall, the program is “ramping up” with a speaker series to spread the word about the new program.

“The IOP Exec team and Dev and I have a star-studded lineup in the works, and we’re really looking forward to bringing in some incredible people to this new space that we’re creating here,” Yu said.

Ahuja said the first speaker event will be on Friday and will feature Sachin Subramanian, the co-founder of artificial intelligence startup Sweetspot.

Though the program is primarily designed for College students, Ahuja said GovLab will consider accepting applications from students across the University “depending on interest and how many spots we get.”

“We’d be open to people of different schools being able to be involved in the program,” Ahuja said.

GovLab is the second startup incubator the IOP has offered to date. In 2011, the group launched Gov 2.0 which gave $5,000 stipends to students who were creating projects in the realms of politics and government.

IOP Vice President Ethan C. Kelly ’25 cited Gov 2.0 and the upcoming 2024 presidential race as inspirations to pilot GovLab.

“Continuing the legacy of Gov 2.0 was a big part of this, but it was also just about establishing a new legacy related to this new set of programming,” Kelly said.

“We have a great opportunity in the 2024 elections to channel people’s ideas, bring them into reality, and actually put something out there following the election,” he added.

Kelly said GovLab is part of the IOP’s growing effort to create new programming to accommodate its surge in membership.

“We are turning that interest into actual action, actual involvement and just generally keeping people engaged — and that comes in with creating new programming,” he said.

—Staff writer William C. Mao can be reached at william.mao@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @williamcmao.

—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.