One major initiative is MBI’s MassBroadband 123, a 1,200-mile fiber-optic, open-access
network, which will extend connectivity to more than 120 communities in both
western and north central Massachusetts. In western Massachusetts there are 45
municipalities categorized as underserved, meaning less than 50 percent of the
city or town has broadband. Construction of the MassBroadband 123 network is
slated for completion in the summer of 2013.

The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC) in Waltham launched a website portal this week aimed at forging partnerships between Massachusetts companies and life science companies in other countries.

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and other state officials and hospital executives will gather at Massachusetts General Hospital to send the first electronic  medical records data to Baystate Medical Center in Springfield.

Mass gets $1M in clean energy support

University of Massachusetts speech language pathologist Yu-kyong Choe won a two-year, $109,251 grant from the American Heart Association to study how robots aid in the rehabilitation of stroke patients. The work is being completed in collaboration with Rod Grupen, the director of UMASS Amherst’s Laboratory for Perceptual Robotics.

More companies bring manufacturing back to US

The University of Massachusetts, Amherst will be one of five organizations across the country to receive funding from NASA to develop innovative technology that can be applied to the agency’s space program.

The Department of the Air Force has invested $1 million in microwave photonics research being conducted by Yifei Li, a professor at UMass Dartmouth.

Companies have until Oct. 25 to submit applications, which can be be submitted online. Information sessions will be held over the summer in various locations for
potential applicants, with dates and locations on the MLSC website.

MLSC launched the program in 2009 as a way to help startup businesses who need
working capital or funding to pay for capital assets. A loan of up to $1 million
per company is provided, an increase from the maximum amount of $750,000 offered
in the past.

Boston-based CampusLive, a company founded by UMass Amherst student Boris Revsin which recently changed its name to Dailybreak, has secured $5 million in a Series A1 round of funding and tapped John Federman as its new CEO, the company announced today.

Incorporated in 2008, the company has already been expanding rapidly in recent
months, with a new Northampton office opening in March and doubling its office space in Boston. The 100-employee company expects to double its head count in the next year.

Building America CDE Inc., a subsidiary of AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust (HIT), has put aside the $5 million plus in tax credits for construction of the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center, the company announced today.

Tornado changes career course for Mass. entrepreneur

Seahorse is one of a group of companies that is expanding in the western Massachusetts life sciences hub, with a biomanufacturing plant in Chicopee that it acquired from Innovative Microplate Inc. seven years ago.

Many of those businesses are high tech or life sciences business. Included in the list of new businesses are DPS Biometics of Framingham; Hadapt Inc. of Cambridge; Inspiration Biopharmaceuticals of Cambridge; Japan Airlines of Boston; Matrigen Life Technologies of Worcester; MIDAC Corp. of Westfield; Navidea Biopharmaceuticals of Andover; Netwatch of Medford; Russian Venture Company– USA of Boston; and Wegmans Food Markets of Northborough.

Some companies including Hitpoint Studios Inc. in Hatfield already have. “I grew Hitpoint because I had local resources,” said Aaron St. John, co-founder of Hitpoint, during a recent panel discussion. “There’s no reason we can’t get the 400-person company in western Mass.”

Paul Silva, executive director of Valley Ventures, said he co-founded the program last February along with co-founders Scott Foster, now chairman of the board, and Steve Willis, the lead sponsor of the group. Silva, who runs the angel investment firm River Valley Investors, said all three of the founders had some connection to the UMass-Amherst entrepreneurship program.

“We found people here [in Northampton] that we were unable to hire in Boston. We need to hire people where they are rather than where we are,” Mark Corner, vice president of engineering at Fiksu, told Mass High Tech. Corner, who will run the new office, is a recognized authority on mobile and pervasive computing and an associate professor on extended leave from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, the company said. He added, “There is a nice synergy with all the universities in western Massachusetts. There are five different academic institutions here.”

State launches program to boost commercialization

Within the next 12 months, it plans to add a second, 20-person office in the Springfield area to service customers in western Massachusetts and upstate New York.

Mimicking the suction of gecko feet, UMass Amherst scientists have invented a super-adhesive material called Geckskin that they claim can firmly attach flat-screen TVs, medical devices, and objects as heavy as 700 pounds to a smooth surface.

Last month Lightower was chosen by the Massachusetts Broadband Institute to supply the MBI’s new rural broadband deployment in western Massachusetts with access to its fiber network to give it access to the Internet. Under the agreement, MBI will lease fiber from Lightower on a separate pair of lines to connect the MassBroadband 123 network to a primary Internet access point in Boston.