Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | May 24, 2021 | Worcester Business Journal S7 S P E C I A L S E C T I O N : W O R C E S T E R E M E R G I N G startups, locating coworking spaces and more. In April, the chamber and its partners won a state grant to launch an incuba- tor and accelerator project known as the Central Mas- sachusetts Startup Consortium that Pelletier said will act as a roadmap for new businesses. e chamber partners with WPI's Venture Forum and the business incu- bator and coworking space WorcLab to run an annual program known as StartUp Worcester to help young en- trepreneurs get their businesses off the ground. One prominent alumnus of the pro- gram is Aaron Birt, a WPI graduate and engineer who founded Solvus Global and was named to the 2018 Forbes 30 under 30 list. Another is Stacy Chin, who got her bachelor's degree from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester and went on to become CEO of HydroGlyde Coatings, which has received $500,000 in funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the National Insti- tutes of Health and the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center. Strong ties All of Worcester's colleges and universities now have entrepreneurship programs, Pelletier said, a shi from when she started working with them seven years ago. "You kind of had to find the right person on campus who even knew what a startup was," she said. "It's definitely more popular now." At Worcester State University, for example, students can participate in the semester-long IDEA Accelerator pro- gram to test their business ideas. Holy Cross has a student-run incubator called HC Launch and an entrepreneurship week featuring a Shark Tank-style competition. Clark Uni- versity students can apply to get their fledgling business a spot in a storefront space operated by the student-run Clark Collective. Loew said the rise of these kinds of programs is partly due to increased student interest in an entrepreneurial career path. "Young people come to college think- ing that maybe they want to have that kind of control over their career and their life," he said. "It's something that is visible enough and common enough around here that it's kind of just in the water at this point." Looking at game development alone, Loew said ties between academic pro- grams and local companies are strong in Worcester. "Worcester has a real strength in game design, game development, from an academic perspective," he said. "WPI and now Clark have two of the top pro- grams in the country, and that's pretty unique. I don't think there's another community that can say it has the den- sity of academic programs and activities related to games as this one." One success story is Petricore Games, a six-year-old game design company that got its start at MassDiGi and is still headquartered in Worcester. Other MassDiGI alumni include Zephyr Workshop, a board game com- pany now operating from Washington state, and Snoozy Kazoo, a West Spring- field company releasing in April its much-anticipated, wonderfully named indie game "Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion." Regardless of the industry, Loew said, he expects entrepreneurial students to see even more opportunity as the economy recovers from the pandemic recession. "You'll start to see, post-pandemic, a tremendous amount of entrepreneur- ship programs and activities kind of oozing out across the community," he said. "ere's no time like the present to start something if you've been thinking about it." Build with Us. Grow with Us. gardnerma.com p 978.632.1780 • f 978.630.1767 • Chamber@gardnerma.com Why locate your business in Greater Gardner? Flexible and ready workforce More aordable residential market Excellence in healthcare and education Quality of life: attractions, dining, shopping, outdoor recreational settings Aordable commercial and industrial market rates Turnkey properties Pad-ready building sites Opportunity Zone availability Easy Route 2 Corridor highway access The Greater Gardner region of Northern Worcester County consists of the City of Gardner and 6 the surrounding towns of Ashburnham, Barre, Hubbardston, Templeton, Westminster, and Winchendon. Greater Gardner Chamber of Commerce Members/ Entity Year founded incubating companies Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives incubator 1985 49 WorcLab incubator 2015 20 Mass. Medical Device Development Center incubator 2017 5 The WorcShop makerspace 2016 105 Technocopia makerspace 2013 100 Worcester incubators and makerspaces Sources: Each entity Karen Pelletier, Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce Worcester Polytechnic Institute students gather at the Foisie Innovation Studio, which has been designed to encourage collaboration. W PHOTO | GRANT WELKER

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