What you may not know is that every product that Vecna offers is made on its Cambridge campus.
“Building things is what it’s been about from the start,” Daniel Theobald, co-founder and chief innovation officer at Vecna, said. “Robotics has been our focus since the beginning.”
So it would only make sense for Vecna to take on all of the prototyping and assembly operations itself, rather than outsourcing them. Theobald says making everything onsite allows the company to accelerate the engineering and manufacturing processes. More »
As institutions, large companies, and small firms dedicate tremendous resources to strengthen their innovation potential, many fail to realize that their office design can be a key building block or a barrier for achieving their goals. More »
Atlantic national correspondent James Fallows and contributing writer Deborah Fallows travelled to Pennsylvania, California, and Kansas to understand what transformations were happening in various industries. “These perceived weaknesses are actually our strength,” says one young resident of Erie, Pennsylvania. More »
Massachusetts is first — once again — in the Milken Institute's State Technology and Science Index 2016. The index tracks and evaluates every state's tech and science capabilities and their success at converting these assets into companies and high-paying jobs. Conducted every two years, the Index has scored Massachusetts first in every edition since it was launched in 2002. More »
Seventy percent of U.S. turbines are in low-income rural areas. More »
While economic development issues have been taking a back seat to other discussions surrounding the presidential election, two state ballot initiatives address these issues directly and several other states feature educational initiatives. Engineering facilities at the University of Rhode Island and biomedical research in Montana would advance if ballot initiatives in those states pass on November 8. Both states are seeking passage of bond issues that would build facilities that would be used to expand or build facilities that benefit students or researchers in engineering and biomedical fields. More »
Second quarter saw the biggest jump in outlays for research in a decade More »
This week, MIT is launching a separate entity called The Engine. From its headquarters a few blocks from our campus, it will offer tough-tech innovators a distinctive package of “patient capital,” affordable local space, access to highly specialized equipment, streamlined legal and business services, and technical expertise, from prototype to scale-up. More »
Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina CEO Christopher Chung has been on the job for almost two years, following 20 years of experience in similar public-private partnership roles in Missouri and Ohio. More »
Executives of three of the largest companies in the United States explained why they chose north Texas for new headquarters projects, during the opening session of the 2016 ULI Fall Meeting in Dallas: the availability of affordable housing and a strong local economy. More »
Manufacturing fell behind the information revolution. That’s about to change. More »
Industry 4.0 creates a disruption and requires companies to rethink the way they design their supply chain. Several technologies have emerged that are altering traditional ways of working. On top of this, mega trends and customer expectations change the game. Besides the need to adapt, supply chains also have the opportunity to reach the next horizon of operational effectiveness, to leverage emerging digital supply chain business models, and to transform the company into a digital supply chain. More »
One-third of the world’s food is grown in areas of high water stress or competition, and agriculture is a leading cause of water pollution worldwide. The food sector, which uses 70 percent of global freshwater supplies, primarily for growing crops, can play a critical role at protecting limited freshwater resources by working with farmers to become more water smart. More »
With the quiet launch of Uber Freight, the ride-sharing giant takes aim at disrupting the massive industry of hauling stuff by 18-wheeler. More »
Innovation Index version 2.0 presents a state-of-the-art measure of county and regional innovation capacity and performance. This index can serve as a valuable tool for policymakers and practitioners to quickly evaluate innovative capacity and potential. More »
The company is now working on developing the technology to allow OEMs to manufacture components—in volume—with much lower capital costs and energy use than the conventional method. More »
Omni-channel distribution, e-commerce and other current warehousing trends are making it tougher than ever to find available warehouse space. More »
In terms of economic impact, some schools are household names. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford, and a handful of other elite universities dominate the business news with multimillion-dollar corporate partnerships and blockbuster startups spurred by star faculty, students, and alumni. More »
