Mass High Tech: Join the Innovation Conversation

In this week’s issue of Mass High Tech, I’ve devoted my monthly column to the thinking behind “Power, Drugs and Money,” which will explore innovation in clean energy technology, life sciences and financial services. Some excerpts:

The selection of those three industries is conscious, and critical: They represent the past, present and future greatness of New England innovation. We have arguably been a world-class financial market for decades. More recently, we have evolved into a leading center of life sciences and biotechnology research and development. And the future bodes well for New England to have a substantial role in clean energy and environmental technologies.

But the conversation is not only about innovation in these three industries, but across them as well: New structures to finance energy projects. The changing face and economics of global clinical trials. Monetizing the carbon value chain. Biotechnology's impact on future fuel sources. Microentrepreneurship and new global lending models. Finding new ways to pay for health care delivery. The list goes on...

The vision is to create an environment for our community to gather, to have the conversation en masse and to work together to make 2008 the year when talk turns to action -- action focused on moving New England toward global greatness.

Power, Drugs & Money – The Beginnings

Power, Drugs & Money. An edgy title for a serious conference exploring New England’s role in the global landscape. How can the world-class innovation happening locally in the areas of clean energy technology, life sciences and financial services make a difference globally? The vision for Power Drugs & Money is to create an event that could be a centerpiece for exploring this question.

The notion for this Conference “officially” started at last year’s Web 2.0 Event (Brave New Web) when Trish Fleming asked if I would host the Conference in 2008. At that time, I had just started writing my column for Mass High Tech on “The State of New England” and was regularly engaged in conversations on the need for the New England Tech Community to rally together to progress and compete in the national and global landscape. It was (and still is) on everyone’s mind with a common theme being the need to rally the New England Community of inventors, entrepreneurs and financiers to forward our place in the global competitive landscape.

We wanted to create a forum where this Community can come together to discuss these issues, learn from one another and set the stage for a future agenda and an ambitious agenda to move New England forward in a meaningful way. To facilitate this, we have been fortunate to rally a great core Conference Planning Team for both the content and the supporting functional aspects of the event and it’s appropriate for me to highlight them here as a small token of my appreciation.

Program Manager
Trish Fleming – MIT Enterprise Forum

Committee Chairman
Jim Matheson - Flagship Ventures

Creative / Media / Operations
Barb Heffner – CHEN PR
Corie Fogg – 451 Marketing
Jim Turner – Affinity Events (event planning)
Rob Butler – MIT Enterprise Forum marketing

Energy Content Team
Peter Rothstein – Flagship Ventures
Tom O’Donnell – TIAX

Healthcare Content Team
Bob Creeden – Partners Healthcare
Anupendra Sharma – Siemens

Financial Services Content Team
Marcel Quiroga – Merrill Lynch

This Team is working hard to bring you all a world-class event so please mark your calendars for February 7th, 2008.

Seize this opportunity. Take action. Change the world.

Join us at the MIT Enterprise Forum’s Innovation Summit 2008.