Mack Institute News Archives

Just Released: Mack Institute’s New Corporate Venturing Report

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The Mack Institute is proud to release our newest work of original research, When Goliath Needs David: How Corporations and Startups are Redefining Corporate Venturing. Based on a systematic review of the world’s 500 largest companies, it presents a data-driven analysis of how corporations are partnering with startups to fuel…Read More

Join Us for a Webinar on Corporate-Startup Interaction

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Corporate Venturing 2025: A New Model of Corporate-Startup Interaction Tuesday, June 24 | 2:00 p.m. | via Zoom Join us for a webinar marking the release of our new report, When Goliath Needs David: How Corporations and Startups Are Redefining Corporate Venturing. The report explores how established companies are increasingly…Read More

Engineering Meets Enterprise: Penn Hyperloop Team Wins Big with Interdisciplinary Approach

The Penn Hyperloop team at the “Not-a-Boring Competition” in Bastrop, Texas

Penn Hyperloop, a student team sponsored in part by the Mack Institute, made an impressive showing at The Boring Company’s “Not-a-Boring” Competition, a global contest that challenges university teams to design and build advanced tunnel boring machines. Competing against top engineering programs from around the world, Penn Hyperloop earned third…Read More

New in Nature: ChatGPT Decreases Idea Diversity in Brainstorming

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Mack Institute predoctoral fellow Lennart Meincke, Wharton Professor Gideon Nave, and Mack Institute Co-Director Christian Terwiesch have published a new paper on AI and creativity in the prestigious journal Nature Human Behaviour. Building on growing research into how artificial intelligence can support idea generation, their study reveals a crucial tradeoff:…Read More

Mack Institute and CSS Lab Team Up On Media Bias Detection

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This spring, a student team from the Mack Institute for Innovation Management collaborated with Penn’s Computational Social Science (CSS) Lab to explore how to bring the lab’s latest innovation, an AI-powered media bias detection tool, to market. The student team is Jieru Shi (WG'25), Keshav Ramesh (W'25) and Caleb Yam…Read More

Research Spotlight: Walter W. Zhang on the “Black Box” of Algorithmic Decision-Making

Algorithms shape countless decisions in our digital lives, powering everything from personalized ads to loan approvals. Many of the most powerful algorithms are so-called “black box” algorithms, meaning that no one, not even the developers building them or the businesses deploying them, fully understands how they work. While these hyper-complex…Read More

Announcing Our Spring 2025 Conference: Productivity in the Age of Intelligent Automation

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Friday, March 21, 2025 The Wharton School, Philadelphia The Mack Institute is pleased to announce our Spring 2025 conference, Productivity in the Age of Intelligent Automation. This one-day event will bring together leading Wharton researchers and expert business practitioners to examine the uncertain question of how artificial intelligence will impact…Read More

Stentix Wins 2025 Y-Prize

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Congratulations to this year’s Y-Prize winners, Stentix! The team proposed a bile duct stent that can be adjusted noninvasively, helping to maintain bile flow without additional surgeries. A biliary stent is a small, tube-like device inserted into the bile ducts to keep them open and allow bile to flow from…Read More

Reimagining Customer Service Journeys with LLMs: A Framework for Chatbot Design and Workflow Integration

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Prof. Christian Terwiesch, Mack Institute co-director, and Lennart Meincke, Mack Institute predoctoral fellow, have co-authored a new working paper on chatbot design and workflow integration, the latest in Prof. Terwiesch's series of papers on practical applications of Generative AI. The paper devises a framework for chatbot implementation based on varying…Read More

2024 Year-End Update

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Dear friends of the Mack Institute, As the year draws to a close and the holiday season approaches, we’re reflecting on one of the busiest and most transformative years in the Mack Institute’s history. In 2024, we broadened our scope, forging new partnerships and launching impactful initiatives across our…Read More

Y-Prize 2024-25 Finalists Announced

Congratulations to the four student teams chosen as finalists for this year’s Y-Prize competition: Serpent, EmBrace, Agentis and Stentix! The Y-Prize competition challenges students to build their entrepreneurial skills by creating business plans for technologies invented at Penn Engineering. The team with the best commercial application wins $10,000 to help make…Read More

AI-Driven Ecosystems

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AI-Driven Innovation Fall 2024 Conference Report Artificial Intelligence has emerged as one of the most transformative technologies of our time, reshaping industries and redefining the competitive landscape. Yet the complexities and costs associated with AI development and deployment, coupled with the uncertainty of value creation, make it clear that no…Read More

Research Spotlight: Lindsey Cameron on Algorithmic Management

In more and more workplaces, important decisions aren’t made by managers but by algorithms which have increasing levels of access to and control over workers. While algorithmic management can boost efficiency and flexibility (as well as enabling a new class of quasi-self-employed workers on platforms like Uber and Instacart), critics…Read More

Announcing Our Fall 2024 Conference: AI-Driven Innovation Ecosystems

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Friday, November 8, 2024 The Wharton School, Philadelphia The Mack Institute is pleased to announce our Fall 2024 conference, AI-Driven Innovation Ecosystems. Bringing together leading Wharton researchers with expert business practitioners, this one-day conference will explore how firms can overcome the risks and high costs of AI development and implementation…Read More

Y-Prize Competition Kicks Off for 2024-25 Academic Year

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The Y-Prize Competition kicked off this week with a well-attended event held in Steinberg-Dietrich Hall. Now in its thirteenth year, the Y-Prize challenges students to hone their entrepreneurial skills by creating business plans using cutting-edge technology developed at Penn Engineering. The team that comes up with the most promising commercial…Read More

Research Spotlight: David Hsu on Effective Industry-University Collaboration

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Collaboration between industry and academia drives innovation forward, but creating a successful partnership—and measuring its impact—is more challenging than it might appear. We spoke to Wharton’s David Hsu about his new paper, forthcoming in Management Science, on what makes industry-university collaboration successful, the importance of viewing innovation as a long-term…Read More

Mack Institute Senior Fellow Jon DeGaynor Appointed President and CEO of Methode Electronics

Mack Institute Senior Fellow Jon DeGaynor has been appointed president and CEO of Methode Electronics, a leading global supplier of custom solutions for user interface, LED lighting system and power distribution applications. DeGaynor has a 35 year career working at a high level in the automotive and manufacturing industries. He…Read More

Mack Institute Explores AI & Innovation, Corporate Venturing at Wharton Global Forum 2024 in São Paulo

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This June, Mack Institute leadership traveled to Brazil for Wharton’s 56th Global Forum, which was held in São Paulo for the first time. Hosted annually in a different world city, the two-day business conference brings together Wharton alumni, faculty, and global business leaders for lectures, panel discussions, and networking. This…Read More

The Role of Large Language Models in Educational Simulations

Mack Institute Research Assistant Lennart Meincke and Wharton Associate Professor of Management Andrew Carton have released a new working paper in our series of working papers on ChatGPT spearheaded by Mack Faculty Director Christian Terwiesch. The new paper, entitled “Beyond Multiple Choice: The Role of Large Language Models in Educational…Read More

Collaborative Innovation: Shaping the Future with Corporate Venturing and Startups

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Collaborative Innovation: Shaping the Future with Corporate Venturing and Startups Spring 2024 Conference Report In this era of rapidly evolving, highly disruptive technologies, corporate venturing practices are evolving, too. High-profile partnerships like Microsoft’s $13 billion investment in OpenAI or BMW’s move into the electrification space with ChargePoint underscore the current…Read More