Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Gov. Patrick touts collaboration at Entrepreneurship conference

By Galen Moore

Gov. Deval Patrick continued his recent flurry of involvement with the high-tech industry Tuesday, kicking off the Mass Entrepreneurship conference with comments about the state of the region’s tech economy.

“The collaborative gene is more widely spread out West,” Patrick said, reiterating comments he made to reporters in a conference call held during a trip to visit West Coast high-tech companies last week. “We need to be talking to each other and sharing ideas and coaching each other and showing each other how to take our great idea from the garage and take it to the next level,” he said.

Patrick said the state’s broadband expansion initiative and the Office of Small Business and Entrepreneurship are key components to making that happen.

Jeremy Halpern, vice chairman at The Capital Network, a resources and networking organization for startups, said the state could do a lot simply by hosting more events for entrepreneurs and investors. “If they provide the imprimatur that this is out of the governor’s office, people show up,” he said.

Halpern, who is managing director at the boutique investment banking firm Evolution Advisors LLC, agreed that East Coast innovators could collaborate better, saying the problem is particularly acute between angel and venture capital investors. “Those guys in the (West Coast) capital shops are at networking events nonstop,” he said.

He also suggested the state remake the quasi-public Massachusetts Technology Development Corp. to allow it to make a higher quantity of small, early-stage investments.

The Mass Entrepreneurship conference, sponsored by the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, the Massachusetts Technology Transfer Center, Northeastern University and the state Office of Small Business and Entrepreneurship, brought together speakers from area universities with legislators and company mentors to talk about supporting young entrepreneurs.