Worcester Idea Lab signs with WPI, first corporate member
Grant Welker
Idea Lab co-founder Joshua Croke and community manager Kate Rasche inside the Idea Lab.
The Worcester Idea Lab, a two-year-old collaborative workspace, has signed its second higher education member and its first corporate member.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute has joined Worcester State University, the Idea Lab's first college member. The Idea Lab has also signed as a member the startup Blustream, which sends temperature and humidity information to a phone app.
On Thursday, the Idea Lab announced it has secured $104,000 from the state agency MassDevelopment to build a new classroom at the space at 20 Franklin St., just across from City Hall. Idea Lab will also add seating and work space and install exterior signs to improve visibility.
Combined, the new memberships and the funding create a major leap forward for the center, a subset of Action! Worcester, a innovation and collaboration advocacy group.
Joshua Croke, the Idea Lab co-founder, called those steps critical, especially as perception remains a large challenge in Worcester.
"Worcester's very much a word-of-mouth town," he said. "It takes awhile to tap into that."
The 3,200-square-foot lab, in the former Telegram & Gazette building, has around a dozen individual members, who pay to use the space, which includes meeting rooms, private phone rooms, wireless internet, printers and supplies. The space is open to the public for free each Wednesday.
Croke, a WPI grad, said the space can be key for colleges looking to expand their presence downtown and help connect students at each of the city's nine colleges. He said he felt a disconnect between the colleges while at WPI.
"I didn't know anyone at the other campuses, and found that was very common," he said.
WPI began using the Idea Lab earlier in the fall semester for a group of 13 students who were supposed to spend several weeks in Puerto Rico for the school's Interactive Qualifying Project, which all students must complete. When Hurricane Maria hit, those plans were shelved. Instead, those students are working out of the Idea Lab and instead working on a project to help bring aid to the island.
Blustream, the Idea Lab's first corporate member, is based upstairs from the lab where it, Quinsigamond Community College and several other tenants rent from the Worcester Business Development Corp. Blustream has created a phone app connecting to a temperature and humidity monitoring device so users can make sure that anything from wine to cigars are stored properly.
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