SCITUATE – The Baker-Polito Administration announced the winners of the inaugural Seaport Economic Council Grand Challenge, awarding over $450,000 in grants to three organizations that will deploy Internet of Things, or ‘IoT’, technologies to boost economic development in the state’s marine economy. The projects, based in Buzzards Bay, New Bedford, Gloucester and Scituate, will use IoT to enable high-tech data analysis in commercial fisheries, deploy distributed sensors to help track lobster populations and create an online data portal that will allow researchers to track tidal flows and other data points in Commonwealth waters, information critical to energy and aquaculture companies.
WORCESTER – Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Jay Ash announced an $80,000 grant to the organization Worcester Roots yesterday, an award that will support the development of cooperative businesses and non-profits in the region. The grant was awarded as part of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative’s (MassTech) Entrepreneurship Mentoring Grant program, an effort that aims to develop strong mentorship ecosystems across the Commonwealth. During the roundtable event, which took place at Becker College’s Center for Global Citizenship, Secretary Ash spoke with graduates of Worcester Roots’ programs, who each highlighted the critical mentoring and resources they received, support that was critical to their success.
SPRINGFIELD – Massachusetts Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Jay Ash announced $160,000 in grants to support entrepreneur mentoring programs at two organizations in the Pioneer Valley, Springfield’s Valley Venture Mentors (VVM) and SPARK in Holyoke. These grants were made under the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative’s (MassTech) Entrepreneurship & Mentoring Program, which aims to develop strong mentorship ecosystems in regions across the Commonwealth. The state’s investments will boost programs managed by VVM and SPARK which provide sustainable support for a range of innovative small businesses and non-profits, ranging from start-ups to companies that are ‘scaling up’ for planned expansions.
WOODS HOLE, MASS. – Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s (WHOI) Center for Marine Robotics kicked off its 4th Annual Entrepreneur Showcase and Leadership Forum today with the official opening of a new pressure test facility that will help researchers and companies better develop innovative marine technologies. The new facility will allow WHOI to replicate the pressure of the deep ocean in an onshore facility which will more than triple the project capacity of its existing manually-operated system, allow for unattended 24/7 operations, and expand the ability of researchers and private firms to test their marine robotics and sensor systems.
WORCESTER – Today the Baker-Polito Administration announced a $5 million matching grant from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MassTech) to Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI), to support the launch of a new landmark healthcare research and product development initiative called PracticePoint at WPI. The new award from MassTech’s Collaborative Research and Development Matching Grant Program will match contributions from WPI and private sector stakeholders, including GE Healthcare Life Sciences, and fund new integrated research and development labs focused on the commercialization of secure healthcare devices and systems.
SPRINGFIELD – Today the Baker-Polito Administration announced a $5 million grant to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst to establish the UMass Amherst Data Science/Cybersecurity Research and Education Collaborative, a public-private partnership designed to accelerate data science innovation in the Pioneer Valley region of Western Massachusetts. The Commonwealth’s investment will help drive the commercialization of new products and ideas, train a leading data science workforce and support collaborative regional economic development activities.
BURLINGTON – Today the Baker-Polito Administration announced a $3 million grant to Northeastern University to establish the Advanced Nanomanufacturing Cluster for Smart Sensors and Materials (“ANSSeM”), a consortium of private manufacturing companies and tier-one research universities working on new methods to create smart sensors and other revolutionary materials using ‘nanoscale’ printing processes.
LOWELL, Mass. – Gov. Charlie Baker today announced a $4 million dollar grant from the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (“MassTech”) to UMass Lowell to support development of a printed and flexible electronics industry cluster, an emerging field that has the potential to become a $76 billion global market in the next decade.
WOODS HOLE, MASS. – The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has awarded the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) a $5 million grant toward the construction of new facilities for the testing and research into innovative marine robotics such autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). The five-year grant award is being made as part of the Collaborative Research and Development Matching Grant Program, managed by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MassTech). The grant to WHOI’s Center for Marine Robotics will help accelerate the deployment of new and existing marine robotics technologies in Massachusetts.
