It’s been a week since the Commonwealth of Massachusetts chose Charlie Baker, a Republican, as the successor to Governor Deval Patrick. Already the governor-elect has met with several Bay State officials, including Speaker Bob DeLeo, and recently tapped his housing and economic development chief, Chelsea City Manager Jay Ash, a Democrat. With a waterfall of cabinet appointments to ensue, and an entire administration to round out, one advocacy group is urging Governor-Elect Baker not to forget about the innovation economy all the while.
The InnovateMA Alliance was formed to help keep the broadly defined innovation economy thriving, and it has penned a letter to the state’s new chief executive encouraging him to consider, early on, “policies that support job creation, workforce readiness, and economic competitiveness relative to other hubs of innovation,” as noted on their website.
InnovateMA spokesperson Mike McLaughlin told BostInno that the essence of the bipartisan initiative is to “connect with people individually at a grassroots level, from Boston to the Berkshires.”
It can sometimes be perceived that Massachusetts is split into two sections: Greater Boston and everywhere else. InnovateMA doesn’t want the organization to be a Boston-versus kind of group, but rather aims to help build spokes to interconnect each of the state’s innovation hubs, not just with The Hub. InnovateMA also wants the governor-elect to create a transition group that’ll seamlessly translate their prospective endeavors as he assumes office in January.
McLaughlin told me that InnovateMA snowballed from Cambridge City Councilor Leland Cheung’s extensive network. Cheung, who vied for the position of Lieutenant Governor, made it a cornerstone of his campaign to boost the Bay State economy through innovating all sectors, from tech and manufacturing to food trucks and production.
The group, comprised of bellwethers from across the state as you’ll see below, sent their letter to the governor-elect last Friday and will be patiently waiting for a response. After all, this isn’t meant to be a preemptive indictment on Governor-Elect Baker’s take on innovation. Quite to the contrary, in fact.
“The letter would’ve been sent to whomever the governor-elect would be,” confirmed McLaughlin.
Before InnovateMA sets an agenda they hope will guide the governor-elect’s potential economic legislation, they’ll be canvassing the Commonwealth and kickstart “conversations with different locations in places we think could get a decent-sized crowd,” said McLaughlin. “We want to crowdsource the agenda for the innovation economy.”
Details of this tour are expected to be released later in November. McLaughlin expects it will consist of six or seven stops “at least” to kick things off.
Members of InnovateMA are as follows. Below, you’ll find a copy of the letter sent to Governor-Elect Charlie Baker. Anyone who agrees with the intention and vision of InnovateMA is encouraged to sign their name to the letter and can do so here.
- Leland Cheung Cambridge City Councillor
- Delcie Bean Paragus IT
- Cory Bolotsky MassChallenge
- David Brown Forsyth Institute
- David Brown TUGG
- David Chang PayPal
- Devin Cole Workbar
- David Cutler Eat Media
- Andi Dankert fwd.us
- Adam Demos Springfield Angels
- Ariel Diaz Boundless
- James Geshwiler CommonAngels
- Tom Gillett Gloucester Economic Development & Industrial Corporation
- Lenny Grover New Media Properties
- Maia Heymann CommonAngels Ventures
- Bill Jacobson Workbar
- Myron Kassaraba MJK Partners, LLC
- Stephen Kraus Bessemer Venture Partners
- Steven Landau SPEC Process Engineering & Construction
- Timothy Loew Massachusetts Digital Games Institute
- James Morin Beacon Street Partners
- Matt Murphy MassChallenge
- David Parker Entrepreneurship for All
- Frank Perullo Sage Systems
- Tom Pincince Digital Lumens
- Ali Procopio fwd.us
- Dave Rafkind Boston New Tech Meetup
- Chris Requena Boston New Technology
- Timothy Rowe Cambridge Innovation Center
- Matt Rubins The Fullbridge Program
- Ned Sahin Brain Power, LLC
- Ron Sarni Co-Creation Ventures & Boston Food Truck Alliance
- Hakan Satiroglu LearnLaunch
- Trevor Stricker Massachusetts Indie Game Collective
- Joshua Summers clypd
- C.A. Webb New England Venture Capital Association
InnovateMA open letter to Governor-Elect Charlie Baker
