Charles and Amanda Kane Entrepreneurship Award

Charles and Amanda Kane Entrepreneurship Award

In 2024, the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship introduced the Charles and Amanda Kane Entrepreneurship Award (formerly known as the Patrick J. McGovern, Jr ‘59 Entrepreneurship Award) to be presented annually to an individual student or student team that has made a significant impact on the quality, visibility, and overall spirit of entrepreneurship education and support across the Institute. Any MIT student or student team is eligible for this Award that honors Charles and Amanda Kane for their support for entrepreneurs and contributions to the Institute community.

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Charles Kane is a Senior Lecturer in TIES and also in the Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Kane currently serves on the Boards of Symbotic (SYM); Alkami (ALKT); Progress Software (PRGS); Workhuman Ltd.; Aareon GmbH; and Acoustic Technologies. Kane also served on the Boards of Demandware (DWRE, acquired by Salesforce); Realpages (RP, acquired by Thoma Bravo); Netezza (NZ, acquired by IBM); Carbonite (CARB, acquired by Open Text); Click Software (acquired by Salesforce); Borland Software (BORL, acquired by Micro Focus); Applix Software (APLX, acquired by IBM); Precisely Software (acquired by Clearlake LLC) and multiple other private companies. He served as Audit Chairman for all of the aforementioned companies. Kane served as Chairman of the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) Foundation and was previously the President of OLPC, a nonprofit spun out from MIT to enhance education in less developed countries. Prior to OLPC, Kane was a founding investor and COO of Global BPO Services Corp., a Special Purpose Acquisition Corp. that merged with Stream Global Services (acquired by Ares Capital). Prior to Global BPO, Kane was the CFO of RSA Security (acquired by EMC); CFO of Aspen Technology; president and CEO of Corechange, Inc. (acquired by Open Text); CFO of Informix Software (acquired by IBM). He has also served in financial executive positions at Stratus Computer, Prime Computer, and Deloitte. Throughout his career, Kane has been involved in developing and executing sophisticated financial strategies in globalizing corporations and mergers and acquisitions. He is a frequent speaker and writer on these topics, as well as other international financial topics and social entrepreneurial ventures. Kane is also a founding member of the Hult Global Challenge which is now part of the Clinton Global Initiative and is the coauthor of the book Learning to Change the World—the Social Impact of One Laptop per Child. He is married to Dr. Amanda Kane, a historian at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and has two children.

Past Award Recipients

2023

  • Sam Broner G
  • Janice Lam G
  • Neelesh Bagga G

2022

  • Ben Spector G
  • Ryan Strobel G
  • Sarah Moseson G

2021

  • David Begun G
  • Kevin Johnson G
  • Navroop Singh Sehmi G

2020

  • Stephanie MacConnell G

2019

  • Anthony Cheng '20 and Adam Xing Liang Zhao '19 of StartLabs Undergraduate Leadership Team

2018

  • Ingrid Oelschlager G
  • Gregory Ekchian G

2017

  • Jacob Loewwenstein G
  • Helen Smith G

2016

  • Alessandra Henderson G
  • Natalie Pitcher G
  • Liz Voeller G
  • Isaac Stoner G

2015

  • Dan Elitzer G & Jeremy Rubin '16 - MIT Bitcoin Project
  • Carlos Sánchez Altable - FinTech and Financial Innovation

2014

  • Andrea Ippolito G

2013

  • Elliot Cohen G, Allen Cheng G, Allison Yost G - Hacking Medicine
  • William F. Whitney ’13 - StartLabs
  • Colin Sidoti ’14 - Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Support and Outreach

2012

  • Akshar Wunnava '14
  • Application of Advanced Entrepreneurial Techniques 15.S24: Team members: Kevin Clough ’12, William Evans ’14, Romi Kadri ’14, Alexander List ’15, Birju Shah G, Parul Singh G, Brett Van Zuiden ’12