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I’m in Dedham, Massachusetts tonight (pronounced Dead-um I think) just southwest of Boston.

Tonight, I started Day One of the Class of 2011 EO/MIT Entrepreneurial Masters Program. The program is a four day a year/three year program open primarily to members of Entrepreneurs’ Organization who are founders or co-founders of companies doing at least $1M per year in sales. It is held here at the MIT Endicott House.

Tonight we started with introductions. So far, I’m impressed with the group. I’m particularly impressed with the international diversity of the attendees. Of our sixty four classmates, twenty eight are from outside the United States. We have classmates from 16 countries including the U.S., Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, Spain, South Africa, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, India, the Netherlands, the Phillippines, Australia, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia.

Going into this evening’s introductory session, I knew only one other attendees, the 26 year-old brilliant phenom Sachin Duggal of Nivio. I met Sachin while in New Delhi in February and have to say he is on the list of the 10 Most Impressive People I’ve Met in the Last 12 Months.

During the introductions, I circled the names of a few folks to ensure I speak further with; Craig Fuller of Transcard, Chris Hanahan on Rotten Gorilla, Itu Kgaboesele of South Africa’s Sphere Holdings, David McMullen of RedPepper, Cam Mochan of The CRUX Company, Francisco Prado of El Salvidor’s d’Anconia Investments, Shashi Reddy of Case-mate, Susan Hrib of Signum Group, Sebastian Ross of Spain’s Grupo Intercom, and Martin Schuurman of the Netherland’s fastest growing company, Inkoopcollectief Yiggers.

I’m also glad to have learned that at least two of the attendees are iContact customers so far.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow. We’ll be hearing from Verne Harnish on the Rockefeller Habits, Patrick Thean on the One Page Strategic Plan, John DeHart on Nurses Next Door, and Geoff Smart on TopGrading.

I look forward to posting tomorrow night about what I learn!

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I wanted to post my Powerpoint slides from the presentation I gave at MIT for their 2009 IDEAS Competition on Monday night. You can view them on Scribd or below via this blog post.

The topic was “The Great Opportunity of Our Generation”

Some of the formatting is off in Scrib but mostly OK…

MIT IDEAS Social Entrepreneurship Competition, Ryan Allis, The Great Opportunity of Our Generation, May 200…

Here are some notes from the award ceremony following my presentation from Joe Chung. Congratulations to the winners! AquaPort, HeatSource and EGGTech were especially interesting to me.

Opening: Nick Fontaine
Keynote: Ryan Allis

Chancellor introduced
$2.5k IDEAS Award Winners
Aquaport
Oladapo Bakare
Ashley
Mary
Rob
Joonhaeng
Ash
Rebecca
Daniel
(water filtration)

Professor Thomas Byrne introduced
$2.5k winner
Vision Group (seeing machine)
Quinn Smithwick
Brandon Taylor
Yi Fei Wu
(project image directly into eye, bypass distorting part)

Barbara Baker introduced
$5k IDEAS Award winner
sponsored by Baruch Family
Global Citizen Water Initiative
Scott Frank
Stephanie Bachar
(place water in tube for 24 hrs to see if clean)

Allan Powell introduced
$5k IDEAS Award Winner
sponsored by The MIT COOP
BLISS
Saba Gul
Dr. Ishrat Hussain
Nadeem Mazen
Ghanzala Mehmood

Presented by Dean Stephen Lerman
$5k IDEAS Award Winner
sponsored by the office of dean of grad education/Yunus Challenge Winner
EGGTech Blandine Antoine Emmanuel Cassimatis Alla Jezmir
(providing battery for lighting to those in tanzania without electricity)

Yunus Challenge Winner
$7,500 IDEAS Award Winner
Lebone
Alexander Fabry
Aviva Presser
Hugo Van Zuuren
(microbial fuel cell solution for providing electricity)

Presented by Professor Thomas Byrne, MD
$7,500 IDEAS Award Winner
Braille Labeler
Aleksander and Anna Anita Leyfell
Adelaide Calbry-Muzyka
Josh Karges
Karina Pikhart
Maria Prus
Rachel Tatem
(electromechanical braille labeler)

Presented by Professor Michael Cima
Sponsored by the Lemelson – MIT Program
$7,500 IDEAS Award Winner
HeatSource
Amy Qian
Celeste Chudyk
Scot Frank
Allen Lin
Mary Masterman
Catlin Powers
Saad S
(encapsulating solar radiation through textile/material that provides heat during night)

Winner’s Retreat 2 Days at Endicott House