Tech Matches Made Online | Group launches website to spur innovation, business links
GETTING LINKED: The Massachusetts High Technology Council launched the Innovation Access Network (InnovationAccess.org) to connect companies and institutions with smaller tech firms in the Bay State.
Valentine’s Day is behind us, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some matchmaking to be done among technology companies.
The Innovation Access Network (InnovationAccess.org) was launched last month by the Waltham-based Massachusetts High Technology Council. Its goal is to connect companies pushing new technologies — the innovators — with “seeker” companies. Seekers are generally larger companies, institutions, universities or state agencies willing to either collaborate or pay for those technologies to use in their own products and services.
So far the site has six seekers and more than 50 innovators signed up, according to James Rooney, vice president at the technology council.
Reaching Out
The goal of the site is to bring innovative technologies from the New England tech cluster more quickly to market by connecting the cluster to regional and global partners, according to the council.
“It’s our sense from our work across the technology sector that companies are increasingly in search for the latest innovation from smaller firms and that smaller companies are increasingly looking for ways to make their innovations known,” Rooney said.
The first 100 innovators to sign up will receive one year of access to the network for free. The fee after that would be $750 per year. Members of the MHTC, which charges varying amounts depending on the annual revenues of the member, will get access through their membership.
Seekers pay $7,000 for a basic package. Some may choose to pay $40,000 for a platform customized specifically for their company, which would be constructed by the firm that designed the innovation network, Quincy-based IdeaPoint Inc. No seeker has yet opted for that option, Rooney said, but as more come aboard, he said he expects some will find it worthwhile.
Other seekers now signed up include Burlington-based BAE Systems Inc., Cambridge-based Draper Laboratory, Wilmington-based Textron Systems Corp. and London-based UK Trade & Investment.
The Natick Soldier Systems Center was the network’s first seeker, Rooney said. In fact, it was the soldier center that first approached the council several years ago seeking new ways to connect with the private sector. As the project progressed, the council decided to make it available to other seekers.
The soldier center is a research, development and engineering Army base in Natick that provides non-lethal soldier-support technologies. From better socks to better body armor, the center’s engineers work internally and with outside companies to find better solutions for soldiers.
Jeffrey DiTullio, the technology transfer manager at the base, said that the Innovation Access Network will help connect the Army to companies with which it has not had a relationship in the past.
“Anytime there’s an opportunity for us to meet our objectives in a way that’s better, cheaper, faster, and we can accomplish that by partnering with the private sector, then we want to do that,” DiTullio said.
Being the Army, its interaction with private companies is a bit different from other seekers.
The Army has plenty of contracts with private companies for which it pays, but it does not pay for collaborations like those happening in Natick. In fact, sometimes the private companies fund the work themselves because they want access to the base’s equipment and labs to test products.
Seekers, which have more administrative authority in the network, post technology requests to which innovator companies can view and respond. The tech council regulates who can buy in to either group.
Recent seeker posts on the IAN include light-weight protection for combat soldiers, fighter aircraft navigation systems and green technology in automobiles. The first two are presumably from the Natick soldier center, but those technology requests are only a preview.There is more detailed information in the IAN system, which is not accessible to the public.
Rooney said that collaborations between companies have traditionally taken place privately, behind closed doors, and that IAN aims to provide the same environment.
“While this portal provides the immediacy and functionality we all kind of increasingly expect in the course of doing business, it preserves the more accustomed privacy involved in potential business deals,” he said.
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