Hartford Business Journal

20 Hartford Business Journal • May 30, 2016 www.HartfordBusiness.com from residents, employers, private and public colleges, his Capitol colleagues, and state- and municipal-agency heads, among others. His fact-finding culminated earlier this year with the crafting of a novel economic-develop- ment blueprint recently approved by the House and Senate that aims to reshape and elevate the state's fledgling innovation ecosystem. That measure, originally known as Senate Bill 1 and tucked away in the budget implement- er (Senate Bill 502), resets in the boldest way yet the state's focus on staking Connecticut's path into the "New Economy,'' Fonfara and the state's economic-development promoters say. If successful, the path to that New Econo- my would be seeded with scores of startups able to access a mentor-network of serial entre- preneurs as well as funding sources through CTNext. It also opens the door for Connecti- cut's municipalities, nonprofits, corporations and universities to pursue individually or as teams an "innovation places'' designation that qualifies them to access a slice of the $90 mil- lion earmarked to fund CTNext over the next four or five years. Doing so, too, would create more opportunities for communities to widen their tax and jobs bases, officials say. Fonfara said that in trying to understand how high-tax states like Massachusetts, New York and California harnessed their growth engines to innovation, he realized that Con- necticut was well behind their curves. Fon- fara said his new plan embraces several ini- tiatives that could help Connecticut replicate the success of those innovation regions. "Connecticut has long been a state of inge- nuity,'' Fonfara said, recalling a time in the 18th and 19th centuries when the state was an innovator in manufacturing and insur- ance. "If this is done right … it can really sup- port that kind of activity all over the state." "Connecticut needs,'' he added, "to rebuild its bench of young players via a sound farm system that recognizes the New Economy.'' CTNext's ramp-up SB 502, which awaits Gov. Malloy's sig- nature, has a broad range of changes to Connecticut's economic-development poli- cies, including the extension of the Small Business Express and First Five loan and grant programs. It also publicly unveils "CT 500,'' an ambi- tious goal for creating in 25 years 500,000 new jobs and attracting 500,000 new residents. But leveraging an innovative economy as a job creator — something General Electric has gone searching for with its headquarters move to Boston — is the primary focus. Under the legislation, five-year-old CTNext would emerge from beneath the umbrella of Connecticut Innovations Inc. as a freestanding agency, with at least $90 million in bonded funding to seed more technology startups focused on medical, manufacturing, bioscience, software develop- ment and bioinformatics. The proposal also seeks to unlock billions of dollars of state residents' personal wealth, by encouraging them to invest in Connecti- cut-based startups in exchange for an estate- tax credit against some of their assets. Born in the 2011 jobs bill, CTNext was envisioned as a support gateway for startups focused on commercializing research and inno- vations coming out of Connecticut's industry and academic sectors, said Christopher "Kip'' Bergstrom, a former deputy state economic development commissioner who worked with Fonfara on crafting the innovation legislation. CTNext will now have its own board, con- stituted primarily by serial entrepreneurs who are better equipped to evaluate and mentor startups that come under its wing, officials say. Its board also will choose which communi- ties and partners get first crack, starting in 2017, at funding to create "innovation places,'' which are modeled directly after the "innovation districts'' that Washington D.C. think tank The Brookings Institute has advocated for some time as a way to spur the 21st century innovation economy. Corporations, associations, nonprof- its, municipalities and colleges are all eligible to compete for the innovation places designation. Catherine Smith, commissioner of the state Department of Economic and Commu- nity Development, said she likes the concept because it requires cities and towns "to look inward to figure out their specific needs, rath- er than hand them a set of defined programs and to try to make it work." Fonfara said much of the feedback he got from this state's entrepreneurs was that there aren't enough designated innovated clusters for them to migrate to and operate in, beyond the obvious ones such as New Haven's Sci- ence Park or the UConn Health Center cam- pus in Farmington, which also houses a satel- lite of Maine's Jackson Laboratory. In his Hartford backyard alone, Fonfara said he could envision innovation places in zones stretching from Trinity College to Hartford Hospital and Connecticut Children's Medical Center; the Parkville neighborhood, where the reSET Social Enterprise incuba- tor is located; the Asylum Hill neighborhood where The Hartford has headquarters and Innovation clusters seek startup culture from page 1 Startups and entrepreneurs are seen collaborating at the reSET Business Factory in Hartford, which could be a potential site for an innovation place, according to Sen. Fonfara. P H O T O S | C O N T R I B U T E D NOMINATE YOUR CFO TODAY! NOMINATION DEADLINE: July 6, 2016 Nominate at: HartfordBusiness.com/CFO For questions about this event please contact Amy Orsini at 860-236-9998, ext. 134 or aorsini@hartfordbusiness.com.

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