Rizwan Virk

Faculty Associate, Research Associate

2022 - Current

In parallel with working on my PhD in Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology in the College of Global Futures, I am faculty associate at the Fulton School of Engineering where I designed and am teaching a course on the social and entrepreneurial dimensions of the Metaverse. I also help as a teaching assistant for entrepreneurship courses in the Technological Entrepreneurship and Management program. I am also a research associate at The Center for Science and the Imagination in researching how science fiction and imaginaries affect scientific and technological innovation.

Founder, Executive Director

2017

I started, raised money for, and ran this accelerator/incubator for playful technology startups on the MIT campus, in conjunction with the MIT Game Lab (located at the MIT Media Lab) during the summer. I ran all aspects of getting the accelerator off the ground, selecting speakers, selecting companies, making investments, and overseeing the program. We have had two batches thus far - summer, 2017, and summer, 2018. More info at https://www.playlabs.tv

Venture Partner

2020

Helping out as a venture partner to this new fund dedicated to video gaming and related startups. It has become the largest dedicated fund in this space. As a venture partner I am on the lookout for interesting investment opportunities for the fund.

Author, Freelance Writer

2019

In addition to working on my books, I have been writing articles on on many areas, including video games/virtual reality, science, technology, consciousness, startups, venture capital, leadership and more. My articles have appeared on NBC News.com, TechCrunch, Venture Beat, Digital Trends, Variety, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Hackernoon, One Zero, Collective Evolution, Om Times, Startup Nation, ValueWalk, ExecuNet, Leadership Now, Leadercast, Young Upstarts, Smart Brief, etc.

Advisor

2019

Ridge Ventures (formerly IDG Ventures) specializes in enterprise software and b2b models. Over the years, I have been part of their extended team as a founder of multiple portfolio companies, as a co-investor and venture affiliate and advisor. In my latest capacity, I help them find VC investments in their areas of focus.

Entrepreneur-in-residence

2020

Doing my usual thing - helping out entrepreneurs at 500 startups.

Co Founder, Managing Partner

2011

Bayview Labs has helped launch many startups; Bayview Capital has invested in a large number of startups in media, gaming, advertising, VR, aerospace. Bayview Films is a division for producing documentaries and narrative full length features and TV shows. Some of our investments have included Tapjoy, PocketGems, Funzio, Apsalar, Discord, iddiction, Telltale Games, Disruptor Beam, Intelligize, LitIQ, Moon Express, Icon Aircraft, BitPagos, Sliver.tv, Free Range Games, etc. For more see http://www.bayviewlabs.com.

Judge, Speaker, Mentor, Contestant

1992

Over the 25+ years, I have played many roles in this world famous business plan competition, which started out as the $10k competition. I was originally a contestant/finalist (when I was a student at MIT), then was invited to be a speaker, then was invited to be a judge for several years, and was invited to mentor teams which had made it to the semi-finals. I've also been an advisor to startups coming out of the MIT Delta-V accelerator.

Board of Directors

2016

I originally helped launch and am on the board at North Bay Solutions, a firm delivering big data/cloud solutions for Fortune 1000 companies. North Bay is one of the top Amazon AWS partners on the East Coast.

Board Of Directors

2017