In studying why Boston has been a center of innovation for nearly four centuries, the Boston History & Innovation Collaborative has identified a set of drivers which came up in all eras, in all types of innovation (technical, medical, and social). Deep historical research on more than 60 cases, conducted with funding from the Massachusetts … Continue reading “Driving Innovation in Greater Boston: It’s All About the Bump and Connect”
Author: Bob Krim
Dr. Bob Krim is co-founder and executive director of the Boston History & Innovation Collaborative.
The Collaborative, a 10-year-old not-for-profit alliance, is focused on ensuring that the Boston region's position as a center of innovation for 400 years continues well into the future. The Collaborative has brought together a powerful group of visionary and dedicated leaders to help fulfill the organization’s mission to:
• teach that Greater Boston's key competitive advantage is the region’s centuries-long capacity to reinvent its economy through innovation
• use lessons from our innovation history to help plan the region's economic development over the next 15-30 years
• embed this story into Boston's culture at all levels---in our civic leadership, visitor industry, academia, and in our youth.
The Collaborative has recently published a children's book---What's the Big Idea?---on Boston Innovation.
With a PhD and Master's degrees in History and Economics and an MBA, Krim has headed several not-for-profits. He has been the principal researcher on the Collaborative's multi-year study of why Boston has been innovative for four centuries. And he is currently working on a book that examines how Boston's economy, driven by innovation, has repeatedly come back from periodic failures to become resurgent in new fields.