Eric Sargent and Marianna Miller discussed MassCEC’s initiatives to foster climate tech innovation in Massachusetts. Eric highlighted the growing trend of blue tech innovation and Marianna mentioned the development of an Ocean Renewable Energy Innovation Center and two new programs: the Massachusetts ClimateTech Studio and the Critical Mass grant program. Both emphasized the importance of supporting startups and accelerating the commercialization of climate-related technologies to address pressing climate challenges.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Eric Sargent: My name is Eric Sargent, and I’m a program manager on the Tech to Market team at MassCEC. I’ve been at MassCEC for about four months, so I’m fairly new to the team. Our government agency has been expanding quite a bit recently. So I’m excited to be a new member on the team and participate in supporting this emerging climate tech industry in Massachusetts.
Marianna Miller: My name is Marianna Miller. I’m a program administrator on the Tech to Market team. And I am even newer than Eric, I’ve been here six weeks. The reason I was really excited about MassCEC was because I have kind of always been interested in the intersection between government work and private and innovation work. I think, as a quasi-state agency, we’re at the perfect intersection to really create change.
Marianna Miller: One recent trend I’ve noticed is that accelerators, incubators, and other ecosystem members have been expanding or changing their offerings. So in some cases, the line between them starts to blur. And as a response to that we’re starting to change our programs and evolve so that we can better support the innovation ecosystem in Massachusetts.
Eric Sargent: We’re also seeing among startups a huge trend around blue tech innovation. We’re excited to see how much is happening in the offshore renewable energy space, but also in adjacent enabling technologies that are happening in ocean tech and in blue tech. And we’re also excited to see really a development around clean energy expanding beyond clean energy. MassCEC has been responding to that and thinking about climate tech more broadly. How do we support this overall ecosystem of startups that are developing technology to solve these pressing problems that we’re facing in the climate?
Marianna Miller: Well, actually kind of going off of the blue tech that Eric was just talking about. We are in the beginning stages of developing an Ocean Renewable Energy Innovation Center out of New Bedford, Massachusetts. I’m excited about that. It’s still in the early stages, but it’s looking promising.
Eric Sargent: We also have two other new programs that are under development right now. The first one is the Massachusetts ClimateTech Studio. The idea behind that program is to take academic research and lab research that’s developed some kind of intellectual property that hasn’t been commercialized yet, so stuck IP, and match that with entrepreneurs, infuse them with cash, additional programming, and training to get some of these technologies that haven’t made it yet to market to have that support so that they can enter and commercialize and continue development to provide these important solutions. Then the other one is a new grant program that we’re currently doing a feasibility study called Critical Mass. The idea behind that program is to provide some support further along for a company that has already proven its technology a little bit but wants some additional funding to support a greater funding pool to do a project that has a larger impact.
