Entrepreneurship Education: A road to success The box below summarises the main dimension of the impact of MIT alumni entrepreneurs and their companies. Eight key facts about MIT alumni entrepreneurs and their companies 121 1. The annual revenues (estimated $2 trillion ) and employment footprint (estimated 3.3 million employees) of the MIT alumni-founded th 122 firms were the equivalent of the 11 largest economy in the world ; 2. New company formation by MIT alumni is accelerating. Among the alumni group reached, alumni from recent years (19909s) started companies at a younger age and closer to their graduation year than 8older9 alumni (19509s); 3. Recent MIT alumni were more often 8serial9 entrepreneurs9 than alumni from earlier years (reflecting a general trend towards shorter longevity of businesses); 4. The economic impact per graduate was higher for 19909s alumni than for alumni from earlier decades (reflecting the economic prosperity of the 123 decade); 5. The impact of MIT alumni goes beyond the US. The majority of the MIT alumni firms were founded in the US, but not only: for example, 790 MIT alumni firms have been created in Europe, mainly in England, France and Germany in the software and consulting sectors. 6. MIT alumni companies could be found in a wide range of sectors, including highly active and innovative sectors such as software, electronics (including instruments, semiconductors, and computers) and biotechnology, as well as sectors that are not the most 8active9 in the US economy. About one third of employees in MIT alumni founded firms were in manufacturing, whilst in the USA, manufacturing firms employ less than 11% of total employment. 7. MIT alumni9s companies are highly innovative and export-oriented. Many of the MIT alumni companies were knowledge-based, as they operate in sectors where patents and research are important. These companies were more likely to hold at least one patent and were more export-oriented than other companies. Therefore, they were considered more likely to have long-term economic growth than companies in other sectors/industries. 8. MIT alumni company sales constituted a quarter of the sales of all companies in Massachusetts. 121 EUR 1.52 trillion at the time the case study was written. This is a conservative estimate as very strict selection criteria were applied 3 the founders had to be alive, and companies were excluded if they had merged or were acquired. Based on this strict selection, companies like Hewlett-Packard, Campbell Soup, Intel and AMP were excluded. 122 As in 2006, year of measurement, (when the records on the companies were updated using Compustat and Dun & Bradstreet). 123 Those who have founded more than one company. To be included in the sample, all of the companies had to be active when the survey took place. 55