NewHavenBIZ

n e w h a v e n b i z . c o m | J u l y / A u g u s t 2 0 1 9 | n e w h a v e n B I Z 9 21st CENTURY Innovation Collaborative (ECIC). Besides quantum computing, biotechnology, health-care delivery, soware and food industries now are the principal drivers of innova- tion. Connecticut's reputation for innovation is growing. e state ranked fourth on Bloomberg's 2019 U.S. State Innovation Index, follow- ing California and Massachusetts and Washington. e index mea- sures research and development, patents, productivity, technology density and other variables. ese days, more than 80 percent of Connecticut's share of annual funding from the National Insti- tutes of Health goes to New Haven. Connecticut received approxi- mately $850 million in NIH grant awards last year. Since winning one of four CT Innovation Places Grants in 2016, the ECIC has funded 14 projects, including Collab, which nurtures entrepreneurs from diverse back- grounds, Health Haven Hub, an incubator for health-care startups and Ives Squared, an "innovation commons" based at the main branch of the New Haven Free Public Library, featuring a café and non-profit networking space. Workforce development is anoth- er priority to support the long-term prospects of new enterprises con- ceived and started up here. For example, ECIC supports Southern Connecticut State Univer- sity's Bio-Path program, a "biosci- ence academic and career pathway" partnership between that school and the city of New Haven. "Some companies founded by principal investigators are ready to hit the ground running, and we can get local residents jobs by providing a pipeline of workers with good talent that the company needs to grow," Harris explains. "It's a pathway to a great career and also a retention strategy. e more people we can add from the community, the more likely they will stay." e University of New Haven recently launched an entrepreneur- ship and innovation program to prepare students "to make substan- tial contributions as 21st century entrepreneurs." Yale continues to offer countless opportunities for innovation. OCR was formed in 1980, the same year the Bayh-Dole Act was enacted, allowing universities and small businesses to own inventions made under federal funding, and to commercialize those inventions. Before that turning point univer- sities such as Yale were indifferent or actively hostile to commercial- ization as a tainting influence on "pure" research. Soderstrom explains that a multimillion gi from the Blav- atnik Fund for Innovation at Yale has doubled the number of faculty startups in life sciences, to an aver- age of nine or 10 annually. e Yale School of Management's Entrepreneurship Program sup- ports and encourages student-fund- ed ventures, and the Tsai Center for Innovative inking at Yale (Tsai CITY) provides programs for stu- dents in many disciplines to grow their projects. Building software engineers At District New Haven, the Hol- berton School is training students "from all walks of life" for careers in soware engineering. Students can attend tuition free, and contribute a portion of their salary for several years aer completing the two-year program. e first cohort started in January 2019. New Haven is the San Fran- cisco-based non-profit's second location. "I persuaded them to come here," says District New Hav- en founder David Salinas. e 106,000-square-foot tech incubator opened in 2018 in the former CT Transit facility on James Street, and houses a coworking space, fitness center, restaurant and other amenities. Asked whether any budding Eli Whitneys are in the building, Salinas says, "ere's definitely a lot of potential." He mentions Nathan Pitruzzel- lo, co-founder and CEO of Scroll, a blockchain data management and security company created by several University of New Haven alumni, which is hiring employees — and gaining traction. "Everybody chases big com- panies, but when you unearth a mature tree and add nutrients it can die," Salinas explains. "When you plant 1,000 seeds, many are going to die, but the ones that stick are going to grow strong. We play a part in the early-stage ecosystem, to provide opportunities and space for those seeds. e proliferation of startups in New Haven, however, is outstrip- ping the supply of physical resourc- es demanded by their creators. "ere is no lab space available for biotech," says Soderstrom. Harris is aware of the need to build a bioscience incubator. "We are evaluating how to put that together," he says. BioXcel erapeutics, a clin- ical-stage biopharmaceutical company using novel artificial in- telligence to identify the next wave of neuroscience and immuno-on- cology medicines, is building out its own lab space at the Long Wharf Maritime Center. Barry Nalebuff, Milton Steinbach Professor of Management at the Yale School of Management (SOM), stresses the need for a commercial kitchen to support food innovators. "We have food companies coming out of Yale le and right, and they really don't have a place to test their prototypes," says Nale- buff, who knows a little about the subject — at the dawn of the new century he co-founded Honest Tea, an enterprise that grew from five ermoses to 100 million bottles a year. (He and co-founder Seth Goldman sold the company to the Coca-Cola Co. in 2008.) "We are working on finding a location," says Latha Swamy, food system policy director for the city of New Haven, which lends finan- cial assistance to a food-business incubator and accelerator run by Collab and City Seed. "We trying to create a community food system, and a primer for New Haven, with information readily available so food entrepreneurs can understand the process." Despite these issues, Harris be- lieves New Haven's entrepreneurial ecosystem is gaining momentum and "exploding" into view. "A lot of these things have been happening behind closed doors," he notes. "We have a very robust ecosys- tem right now," Soderstrom says. "In my 20 plus years at Yale I've never seen it this active, which is why New Haven is an exciting place to be now." Eli Whitney would be amazed. n One of the Elm City Innovation Collaborative's most promising projects is Ives Squared, the New Haven Free Public Library's year-old 'innovation commons.' Related sidebar on Page 10

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