Robotics, photolithography, clean energy — these technologies and others hold great promise for the region north of Boston whose brainpower is its greatest natural resource. There were these developments this month:
r The North Shore Technology Council launched its North Shore Life Sciences Accelerator, based at the Cummings Center in Beverly, whose mission is to "nurture select, early-stage biotech or medical-device firms with strong technologies and business plans."
r The Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Co., run by the state's 40 municipal utilities, including those in Peabody, Danvers, Ipswich, Middleton and Marblehead, announced a new program aimed at encouraging the use of solar power for electricity production.
The state has a goal of having 250 megawatts of solar power capacity in place by 2017, and this initiative will help companies like Solectra Renewables of Lawrence, which manufactures the equipment needed to convert renewable energy like solar power into useful electricity.
r At a meeting at iRobot Corp. in Bedford, Gov. Deval Patrick hailed the robotics industry as a "critical and burgeoning sector of economy." More than 2,500 people are currently employed in the field, and annual sales are approaching the $1 billion mark.
Between global giants like Gloucester's Varian Semiconductor Equipment Associates, a pioneer in the use of photolithography for the manufacture of microchips, and those start-ups still struggling for a foothold, the region appears poised for an economic revival built on what Patrick, during his iRobot visit, described as "our unique concentration of educational resources, innovative capacity and entrepreneurial spirit."
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