State Wants to Drive Business Connections (Metrowest Daily News)

• Identify an industry leading company or group of companies that have a need for growth.
• Work with each company to come up with a detailed list of growth needs.
• Identify in-state resources that meet the company’s growth needs, such as university labs, work-force training providers, venture capitalists or small companies.

Drive the company’s executives around the state "from lab to lab, company to company" in a van, for a "customized, intense set of meetings, typically concentrated over a one- or two-day period." 

Kimball said the program will help put the research and development going on in this state directly in front of industry leaders for potential commercialization, bring academic research into business circles and connect companies that are not familiar with one another.

"We’re not picking winners, we’re not picking losers," Kimball said. "We’re trying to make a connection between people who have needs and people who have answers."

Patrick Larkin, director of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative’s John Adams Innovation Institute, said his Westborough-based organization has been helping Kimball’s office identify firms both inside and outside Massachusetts that have critical research needs.

"(Business Connect) represents a very comprehensive and strategic approach to economic development," Larkin said. "It&rs