tbed

When Daniel Pelaez took a job with the Town of Southbury, Connecticut Public Works Department after his first year at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, he learned lessons that, a few years later, would become the basis for his startup, Cyvl. Daniel spent a season on the public works road crew fixing issues flagged by residents or found by the road foreman.

Technology-based economic development organizations work with economic development professionals throughout the U.S. to help build their local innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems. Sometimes, bringing in outside expertise with established networks to R&D and finance can accelerate the local capacity to support innovation-driven startups. gener8tor, a venture capital and startup accelerator founded in Wisconsin, is one such example of external partners supporting TBED capacity building anywhere.

Massachusetts’ Gov. Maura Healey recently proposed a multi-year funding strategy (Five-Year Massachusetts Capital Investment Plan (CIP) [FYs 2026-2030] that  would include investment of $890.4 million, including general obligation bonds and private sector contributions, for many of the state’s TBED and innovation initiatives (programs are outlined below).

Vaccine and therapeutics storage and delivery may never be the same as Emory University and Micron Biomedical recently announced the first clinical trial of a novel rotavirus vaccine, CC24, delivered via dissolvable microarray technology. This clinical trial was the first clinical evaluation of any drug or vaccine delivered via patch or microarray that is sponsored by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

Please note: this article is not intended as a comprehensive review of Public Law No. 119-21, nor should our reading of the law be treated as tax or legal advice.

In 1978, Massachusetts took a risk and made an $8.5 million investment into one of the earliest technology-based economic development (TBED) initiatives in the world. The commonwealth, among the states hard-hit by the global manufacturing restructuring underway at the time, which led to the deep recession of the early 80s, knew it needed to try something different to restore its economy and its long-term competitiveness.

The list of technology-based economic development initiatives within the newly created Technology and Innovation Office of the New Mexico Economic Development Department covers the spectrum of critical policy aspects required for a strong state innovation economy: increasing R&D, business incubation, targeted emerging technologies and strong existing assets, startup capital, venture development, and innovation talent development and recruitment.

May 20, 2025, at 2:00 p.m. ET | Zoom 

A handful of showcase events across the country are known widely by mere nicknames, gather lots of media attention, and attract tens of thousands of people or more each year. Can a state’s lead technology-based economic development stand out in this kind of crowd? Is it worth the investment to try?