Where Innovation Happens by Tim Rowe

Back in episode 11 of Where Innovation Happens, I took a slight departure from the main focus of this podcast — the places and spaces where people innovate — to explore a process that matters deeply for every innovation company: how to select amazing people to join your team.⠀At the time, I mentioned that I would publish the conversation in two parts.⠀Part 1 (episode 11) focused on how to decide who to interview based on the candidates who apply. In other words, it was about resume review and the first stage of candidate evaluation.⠀This episode is the promised Part 2. It focuses on how to conduct great interviews.⠀Our guest host again is CIC’s Global Head of HR, Karina Wozniak. Our expert guest this time is CIC’s CEO, Denyse Medlenka. Denyse came up through CIC’s HR function earlier in her career, so she knows this topic from many angles: as an HR leader, as a manager, and now as CEO.⠀These episodes use CIC’s own approach to candidate selection and interviewing as the example for explaining our philosophy. CIC is widely viewed as building unusually strong teams, so we hope that sharing some of our practices will be useful to founders, managers, and hiring teams building their own organizations.⠀A key message in this episode is that hiring is one of the most important things any manager does.⠀That may sound obvious, but it is easy to underestimate just how much a single hiring decision can shape a team, a culture, and an organization’s ability to do its work. A great hire can make people feel, almost immediately, that they cannot remember how the team functioned without that person. A poor hire can create rework, slow everyone down, and damage the trust of the team.⠀Denyse explains how CIC looks for evidence of values, experience, potential, and “horsepower.” She also explains why the best interviews are not about whether someone sounds impressive in theory. They are about whether the candidate can show what they have actually done.⠀One theme we find especially important is the difference between values fit and familiarity. Too often, “fit” can become a vague way of saying that someone feels familiar, comfortable, or similar to the existing team. Denyse and Karina talk about why that is dangerous, and why strong hiring means looking for people who can thrive in the culture while also adding something the team does not already have.⠀Karina and Denyse also discuss behavioral interviewing, how to ask better follow-up questions, how to understand the real meaning behind a line on a resume, and why interviewers should listen carefully not only to what candidates say, but also to what they do not say.⠀The conversation gets very practical. Denyse shares red flags to watch for, including lack of curiosity, speaking negatively about former employers without reflection, and an inability to describe a real mistake and what was learned from it. She also talks about reference checks, work samples, evaluating early-career candidates, and the challenge of balancing high standards with openness to potential.⠀At the heart of the conversation is a simple idea: hiring should be evidence-based.⠀We should not make excuses for missing evidence because we like someone. We should not confuse confidence with competence. And we should not rely on vague impressions when the stakes for the team are so high.⠀This episode is especially useful for founders, managers, hiring teams, HR leaders, and anyone building an organization where culture and performance both matter. Innovation communities depend on great people. Great people come from thoughtful, disciplined hiring.⠀Featured guest: Denyse Medlenka, CEO of Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC)⠀Guest host: Karina Wozniak, Global Head of HR at CIC

In this episode of Where Innovation Happens, I sit down with Daniel Koh, a candidate for Congress in Massachusetts’ Sixth District, for a conversation about innovation, competitiveness, and the role political leaders can play in helping builders build.⠀Political leaders can have profound impacts on the innovation landscape. With this in mind, this is the first of what I expect will be a number of conversations with aspiring political leaders about the impact they believe they can have on innovation.⠀I’ve known Dan for years, going back to his time as Chief of Staff to Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, a role he took on at just 29 years old. When Walsh later became U.S. Secretary of Labor, Dan followed him to Washington as his Chief of Staff once again.⠀Since then, Dan has also worked inside the White House and in the startup world, including as Chief Operating Officer of HqO.⠀That combination makes him an interesting guest for us. Dan has seen government from the inside, but he has also worked in the early-stage world, where companies are trying to find customers, raise capital, hire talent, and survive long enough to matter.⠀That experience shapes how he thinks about policy, economic growth, and what it takes for a region to remain competitive.⠀We talk about why Dan is running, and his view that Washington has become too focused on personal attacks and not focused enough on delivering for people.⠀We discuss artificial intelligence, including the challenge of addressing real risks while protecting the enormous potential of new technology, especially in health research, life sciences, and the search for cures.⠀We also dig into the housing challenge in Massachusetts, the abundance agenda, and the simple but often overlooked idea that supply and demand still matter.⠀Dan talks about Massachusetts not just as Boston or Cambridge, but as a broader innovation ecosystem. He sees places like Lynn, Andover, and the rest of the Sixth District as part of a potential corridor of innovation, if the region chooses to think and act more ambitiously.⠀Another major theme is talent. Massachusetts educates some of the most capable people in the world, but too many leave after graduation to build their careers elsewhere.⠀We talk about what it would take to keep more of that talent here, and what role public leaders can play in supporting entrepreneurs, startups, and growing companies.⠀In this conversation, I seek to find out what government can do when leaders understand both policy and the real-world challenges of building something new.⠀Whether you are an entrepreneur, investor, policymaker, or someone who cares about the future of Massachusetts and the country, I think you will find a lot here worth thinking about.⠀Featured guest: Daniel Koh, candidate for Congress in Massachusetts’ Sixth District, former Chief of Staff to Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and U.S. Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh, former White House official, and former COO of HqO.⠀Host: Tim Rowe, founder of Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC) and host of Where Innovation Happens.⠀Topics and keywords: innovation policy, startups, entrepreneurship, Massachusetts politics, Congress 2026, Sixth Congressional District, Daniel Koh, Dan Koh, Tim Rowe, Where Innovation Happens, Boston innovation, life sciences, biotech, artificial intelligence policy, housing affordability, abundance agenda, talent pipeline, venture capital, economic competitiveness, Cambridge Innovation Center, CIC, startup ecosystem, government and innovation.

In this episode of Where Innovation Happens, I sit down at CIC Berlin with Marvin Göldner, co-head of Startup Incubator Berlin, the entrepreneurship center of the Berlin School of Economics and Law.Startup Incubator Berlin is located within CIC Berlin.Marvin works right at the beginning of the startup journey.He describes his world as “zero to one”: working with entrepreneurs from the moment when they have an idea, a possible co-founder, a first prototype, or maybe only a problem they want to understand better.That is a fascinating place to spend time, because it is where many companies either begin to become real or quietly disappear.One of Marvin’s memorable messages in this conversation is that founders often fall in love with their idea too soon.They can become attached to a solution before they have really understood the problem.At Startup Incubator Berlin, Marvin and his team push founders to get out of the building, build prototypes, test early MVPs, and speak with real customers early and often.Their monthly UX testing format, which happens within Venture Café Berlin, is a structured method to make that happen at scale.We also talk about Berlin as a startup city.Marvin is candid about both the opportunities and the challenges.Berlin has become more mature as a startup ecosystem, with strong networks, venture capital, creative energy, and many founders looking for collaborators.At the same time, finding housing has become harder, and the city needs more scale-ups that stay and create long-term jobs.Marvin also shares his work with Climate Tech Hub Berlin and the Urban Innovation Forum, which bring together startups, researchers, infrastructure players, municipalities, and companies working on climate and urban innovation.I liked his point that good ecosystems should not be closed shops.They need easy entry points, strong events, and repeated opportunities for people to be in the same room long enough to build trust.Toward the end of the conversation, Marvin raises a question that feels very current:In the age of AI, do technical founders still need business co-founders, and do business founders still need technical co-founders?With tools like ChatGPT, Canva, Lovable, and Cursor AI, some founders can now do much more on their own than they could before.But Marvin’s view is that this only works up to a point.Building a company is not only about tasks.It is also about the mental support, trust, and shared commitment of being in it together.That theme connects with something I have seen again and again in innovation communities.Entrepreneurship often begins with people meeting each other, spending time together, testing ideas, and deciding to build.The spaces, programs, and gatherings that make those moments possible are not background infrastructure.They are part of how innovation actually comes together.Featured guest: Marvin Göldner, co-head of Startup Incubator BerlinHost: Tim Rowe, Founder and Executive Chair of Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC)Topics and keywords: Marvin Göldner, Startup Incubator Berlin, HWR Berlin, Berlin School of Economics and Law, CIC Berlin, Where Innovation Happens, Cambridge Innovation Center, Berlin startups, startup incubation, startup ecosystems, early-stage startups, zero to one, lean startup, UX testing, MVPs, customer discovery, Venture Café Berlin, Climate Tech Hub Berlin, Urban Innovation Forum, co-founder matching, AI and startups, ChatGPT, Lovable, Cursor AI, Canva, Berlin entrepreneurship, startup founders, innovation hubs.

In this episode of Where Innovation Happens, I sit down at CIC Berlin with Jorge Ferreira, founder of LIQUIDLOOP GmbH, a Berlin-based startup working at the frontier of climate technology, electrochemistry, and sustainable chemistry.This episode is part of a larger experiment I am doing to occasionally interview entrepreneurs working within innovation hubs, to learn about the innovation process from their perspectives. I ask about their work, but also about their experience as innovators in their communities.Jorge, whose name is pronounced very much like the English name “George,” and his team are building tools that help scientists see what is happening inside complex chemical reactions in real time. One goal is to take a compound we often think of as waste, such as carbon dioxide, and transform it into something useful that we can actually build products with.In our conversation, Jorge explains how LIQUIDLOOP’s technology helps researchers study reactions related to CO₂ capture and CO₂ transformation into other molecules, some of which may matter for the energy transition. We talk about why scientists need better tools to understand these reactions, how electrochemistry can help turn electricity into fuels or useful chemicals, and why this kind of research may become an important part of a cleaner industrial future.Jorge speaks both as a scientist and as an entrepreneur. He has spent years thinking about catalysts, materials, electrochemical reactions, and how molecules behave at tiny scales. But he is also thinking about how those discoveries move out of the lab and eventually become part of real-world solutions.We also talk about Berlin. Jorge moved from Portugal to Berlin more than a decade ago to pursue his scientific work, and he describes why the city became the right place for him to build. Berlin has a special energy. It attracts people who want to explore, build, experiment, and live creatively. In Jorge’s case, that energy helped lead him to build a company working on a fulfilling scientific challenge with wide-ranging applications.This episode underscores that climate innovation is not only about big infrastructure and policy. It is also about the deep tools and scientific instruments that allow researchers to rewire how our industrial processes work. Before a technology can scale, someone has to see the reaction clearly. LIQUIDLOOP is trying to make that possible.Featured guest: Jorge Ferreira, founder of LIQUIDLOOP GmbHHost: Tim Rowe, Founder and Executive Chair of Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC)Topics and keywords: LIQUIDLOOP, Jorge Ferreira, CIC Berlin, Where Innovation Happens, Cambridge Innovation Center, climate tech, carbon capture, CO₂ capture, CO₂ transformation, electrochemistry, electrocatalysis, sustainable chemistry, green hydrogen, ammonia, renewable energy storage, energy transition, startup Berlin, Berlin startups, climate innovation, deep tech, scientific instruments, Differential Electrochemical Mass Spectrometry, DEMS, startup ecosystems, innovation hubs.

In this episode of Where Innovation Happens, I sit down in Berlin with Ewa Geresz, Director of Venture Café Berlin and one of the people helping grow the Venture Café network around the world.Venture Café has a simple mission: connecting innovators to make things happen. As Ewa explains in this conversation, there is a lot of thought and care behind this. Every week, in cities around the world, Venture Café brings together founders, investors, scientists, artists, students, corporate leaders, public sector people, and others she calls “curious doers” in a free, open environment.The goal is not just networking. It is to create the conditions where people who would not normally meet each other can discover shared interests, build trust, and sometimes create something entirely new.We recorded this conversation at CIC Berlin, where Venture Café Berlin holds its Thursday Gathering. Ewa shares what a typical evening looks like, including a recent gathering focused on fashion tech. Nearly 350 people attended that night, which gives a sense of the energy that is forming around this community.One of the ideas I love most in this conversation is that innovation often happens at the intersection of different worlds. Ewa and I talk about the importance of breaking silos, building trust through regular gatherings, and designing spaces where people meet first as human beings, not as job titles or company names.We also discuss why a recurring, low-barrier event can become an important piece of a city’s innovation infrastructure.Ewa also shares what it has been like to help build Venture Café Berlin, including the importance of understanding the local ecosystem before trying to strengthen it. Venture Café is not an accelerator, incubator, or investor. It is a platform for the people already building a city’s innovation community.The goal is to help local founders, ecosystem builders, institutions, and innovators find each other more easily and work together more effectively.This episode is also a good introduction for anyone who has heard of Venture Café but has never attended, or for anyone thinking about ways to strengthen the innovation ecosystem in their own city. Ewa explains who should come, how to get involved, and why the first step is often simply showing up.If you are building a company, thinking about starting something, working in science, art, technology, government, education, or just curious about innovation, Venture Café is meant to be open to you.Featured guest: Ewa Geresz, Director of Venture Café Berlin.Host: Tim Rowe, Founder and Executive Chair of Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC).Topics and keywords: Venture Café Berlin, Venture Café Global, CIC Berlin, Cambridge Innovation Center, Berlin startup ecosystem, innovation communities, startup ecosystems, ecosystem building, innovation hubs, entrepreneurship, founders, investors, co-founder matching, fashion tech, UX startups, creative technology, community building, serendipity, trust, cross-sector collaboration, innovation infrastructure, Thursday Gathering, startup community, Where Innovation Happens.

In this episode of Where Innovation Happens, I sit down in Berlin with Timon Rupp.Timon has spent much of his career at the intersection of technology, mobility, startups, corporates, and public policy. Before joining CIC as Managing Director for Germany, Timon founded and led The Drivery, one of the world’s best-known mobility innovation hubs. He and I share the vision that if we bring bright people together around a hard problem, and give them a focused place to work in close proximity to one another, the speed and quality of their innovation will increase dramatically. One result can be big, positive impacts on the world. A simple example is how autonomous driving appears to be ~8-10x safer than human driving, looking at serious accidents.We talk about how innovation ecosystems are built, why physical places matter, and what Germany can contribute to the next era of global innovation.In this conversation, Timon and I explore how innovation is not just about buildings, programs, or capital. It is about people, trust, density, and the informal collisions that help ideas move from invention to real-world impact.Since Timon runs CIC Berlin, we talked about CIC Berlin itself and share some B-roll. The building is extraordinary: large, historic, full of courtyards, high ceilings, and layers of Berlin’s complicated past. It is the kind of place where a new chapter of innovation can happen. Under Timon’s leadership, CIC Berlin is evolving from a single focused hub into what he terms a “hub of hubs,” where clusters such as artificial intelligence, mobility, fashion, fintech, health, music tech, universities, startups, corporates, investors, and policymakers can interact under one roof.From there, Timon and I discuss how globalization is changing, why global innovation platforms may become even more important in a more fragmented world, and why ecosystems like CIC can help keep channels open between people who still need to work together.We look ahead to the technologies that may define the coming decades: artificial intelligence, quantum computing, fusion energy, autonomous mobility, drones, solid-state batteries, and new forms of transportation. Some of these changes are exciting. Some are unsettling. And most are both. That makes the role of innovation communities even more important, because we need places where people can understand what is happening, ask better questions, and help guide these technologies toward useful and responsible outcomes.Toward the end, Timon offers advice for people who want to participate in this future. His message is encouraging: stay open, keep learning, talk to people, join communities, and do not try to navigate the next wave alone. Major technology waves, which he refers to as "hype cycles," are coming faster now, and each one also creates a new on-ramp for people who want to build, contribute, and help shape what comes next.Featured guest: Timon Rupp, Managing Director of CIC Germany and founder of The Drivery.Host: Tim Rowe, founder and Executive Chair of Cambridge Innovation Center.Topics include: innovation hubs, CIC Berlin, Germany innovation, Berlin startup ecosystem, The Drivery, mobility innovation, automotive innovation, artificial intelligence, AI ecosystems, quantum computing, fusion energy, autonomous vehicles, solid-state batteries, drones, startup ecosystems, corporate innovation, university innovation, Venture Café, global collaboration, innovation infrastructure, and where innovation happens.

In this episode of Where Innovation Happens, I sit down in Tokyo with Tak Umezawa, a leading voice in Japan’s innovation ecosystem and Chairman of CIC Japan, for a wide-ranging conversation about Japan’s innovation economy.Tak has had a front-row seat to many sides of Japanese innovation. For much of his career, he led A.T. Kearney in Japan, stepping down as its Chairman last year. In that role, he served as an advisor to the CEOs of many large Japanese corporations, as well as to senior Japanese government leaders. He is known as a proponent of the idea that Japan can recognize and build on its uniqueness, not just as a technological power, but also as a cultural power. He helped spur many initiatives in this area, including the well-known Cool Japan initiative and fund.Tak also happens to have been my classmate at MIT Sloan School of Management, and a friend for 33 years.Since CIC’s arrival in Japan, Tak has helped build CIC into one of Japan’s most important startup communities. He agreed to become our Chairman a little under a decade ago, while continuing in his role at A.T. Kearney.This conversation is not just about startups. It is about the deeper question of how Japan can turn its extraordinary strengths into new global companies. And it is also two old friends catching up on a topic of shared interest.Japan is still one of the world’s great countries for quality, manufacturing, science, design, culture, and trust. But as Tak explains, having great ideas is not the same thing as innovation. Innovation requires making those ideas real. It requires commercializing them. It requires building companies that can compete in the most important markets in the world.We talk about why large Japanese companies are so good at their core businesses, but often struggle with disruptive innovation. We also talk about why Japanese startups may need to think globally from the beginning, rather than first building only for the Japanese market and expanding later.Tak makes a provocative suggestion: for some Japanese startups, getting acquired early by the right global company may actually be a smart way to bring Japanese innovation to the world faster.We also explore what Japanese innovation policy could look like if the goal were to create more globally competitive startups. Tak highlights three big ideas: Japan should attract more international investors; Japan should unlock the technology and talent trapped inside large corporations; and Japan should internationalize its people, companies, and institutions much more deeply.This leads us into a broader discussion about talent. We talk about women in Japan’s workforce. We talk about Japanese people who have lived abroad and may not feel fully welcomed back. We talk about dual citizenship, overseas Japanese talent, and what Japan might learn from countries like India and China.We also talk about Japan’s global cultural power. Food, anime, manga, gaming, beauty, fashion, and design are no longer niche interests. They are major global markets. But in many cases, non-Japanese entrepreneurs have been faster than Japanese companies at building global businesses around Japanese culture. That is both a warning and a huge opportunity.Toward the end, we talk about CIC Japan itself. Tak shares what he thinks helped CIC Tokyo develop such a strong community. He also talks about CIC Catalyst, climate innovation, life sciences, Fukuoka, Osaka, and the next stage of CIC’s work in Japan.For me, this conversation is really about Japan’s next chapter. Japan has world-class science. It has trusted brands. It has creative culture with global appeal. It has extraordinary talent. The question is how to connect those strengths to entrepreneurship, global markets, and places where innovators can find each other.That is where innovation happens.Featured guest:Tak UmezawaChairman, CIC JapanHost:Tim RoweFounder and Executive Chair, CIC

In this episode of Where Innovation Happens, I sit down with Sheamus McGovern, founder and CEO of ODSC AI and author of The AI Skill Flip, to talk about what AI really means for professionals, cities, and innovation ecosystems.The book itself can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/AI-Skill-Flip-Professionals-Reinventing/dp/B0GTX3D6W8Sheamus has been part of the data science and machine learning world for many years.He built ODSC from its early roots in the Boston data community into one of the largest practitioner-focused AI and data science conference communities in the world.And, as it turns out, part of that story began right here at CIC in Cambridge: he was here when he founded the conference.We talk about the moment when data science became AI in the public imagination, especially after ChatGPT brought these tools into everyday life.This conversation is about what people can actually do with AI.Sheamus makes the case that AI is not simply replacing skills.It is flipping which skills matter most.If AI can now help you write, code, summarize, research, or review documents, then the scarce skill – the one that will matter for humans – becomes “judgment”.Can you tell whether the output is good?Can you ask the right question?Can you use the tool in a way that makes you more capable, rather than just faster?We also talk about what this means for cities and regions that want to lead in AI.Many governments now have an AI strategy.But Sheamus argues that the most important work may not start with a top-down strategy document.It should start with people, communities, literacy, and practical use cases.Boston’s innovation ecosystem comes up naturally in the conversation.We talk about CIC, MassChallenge, MassRobotics, meetups, practitioner communities, and the kind of bottom-up learning that helps new technologies spread.We also explore a useful mental shift: treating AI less like a tool and more like a teammate.That does not mean trusting AI blindly.It means learning how to work alongside it, give it context, build feedback loops, and use it to extend your own capabilities.This episode is for professionals trying to understand how AI will affect their careers.It is also for founders, policymakers, city leaders, and ecosystem builders who are thinking about how AI will shape the next generation of innovation hubs.Featured guest:Sheamus McGovern, founder and CEO of ODSC AI and author of The AI Skill FlipHost:Tim Rowe, founder of Cambridge Innovation Center, co-founder of LabCentral and MassRobotics, and host of Where Innovation HappensKey topics:AI and the future of workThe AI Skill FlipAI literacyData science and machine learningChatGPT and generative AIAI for professionalsAI tools versus AI teammatesInnovation ecosystemsBoston and Cambridge innovationStartup communitiesODSC AIOpen Data ScienceCIC CambridgeMassChallengeMassRoboticsCities and AI strategyEconomic development and AIFuture of workKnowledge workEntrepreneurshipStartup hubsPlaces where innovation happens

In this bonus episode of Where Innovation Happens, I take a slight departure from the main focus of our podcast — the places and spaces where people innovate — to explore a key process that is important for all innovation companies: selecting amazing candidates to work for your business.I will publish two parts to this episode: Part 1, this video, which focuses on how to choose who to interview based on the candidates who apply, and a future Part 2, which will focus on how to conduct great interviews.For this episode, I sat down with Karina Wozniak, CIC’s Global Head of Human Resources, for a practical conversation about reviewing resumes. This is one of the most important, and underrated, skills in building any organization.Here is the gist of what we talked about:Most people are asked to review resumes at some point, but few people are taught how to do it well. Yet it is important that we do it properly. When we decide to move forward with interviewing someone who doesn’t actually have the experience or capabilities we need, it is costly to the company.First, there are some qualities that we can principally only evaluate well at the resume-review stage, such as whether candidates have the right experience and whether they were high performers in past jobs. If we neglect to draw a firm conclusion about these things at the resume-review stage, there is a chance that when we interview them, we will “like” them because of their communication style or natural charm, and that we will end up hiring someone without the actual experience and capabilities we need.Even if we catch in the interviews that they are not the right hire, we will typically have squandered a full day of team time on unnecessary interviews. So we need to learn how to make the right selections up front about whom to interview.We talk about tips for focusing our review of the candidate’s past experience, and determining whether it is relevant to us.And we talk about how to assess whether the person was a high performer in past jobs — what we call evidence of “real-world horsepower.”Understanding these things is key to determining whether the person is likely to become a high performer in the specific role you are hiring for.One of the main ideas in the episode is that a resume is not just a biography. It is a map.It can show patterns, such as repeated promotions — or the lack thereof.It can show awards, selective acceptances, major accomplishments, and other signs that leaders in the candidate’s prior organizations saw them as exceptional — or the lack thereof.One of the most useful signals is what is missing on a resume: you need to look past the words to see what is not stated. You need to notice the things we need to see that aren’t there.We talk about why repeated promotions are such a powerful signal. A promotion is not just a title change. It is evidence that the people who actually knew the candidate’s work thought highly enough of them to give them more responsibility. When that happens repeatedly, it is the strongest sign available to us from a resume that a candidate has the judgment, drive, execution ability, and learning velocity to succeed.We also discuss how to think about early-career candidates, where there isn’t much past work experience to go on. In those cases, we can look for other signals of initiative, leadership, achievement, and follow-through in school and other pre-career settings.This episode is for founders, managers, recruiters, and anyone who wants to get better at hiring.Because hiring exceptionally well is not magic. It is a skill.And like most skills, it gets much better when you have a few good tools.Featured guest:Karina Wozniak, Global Head of Human Resources, CICHost:Tim Rowe, Founder and Executive Chair of CIC

In this episode of Where Innovation Happens, I sit down with John Land, General Manager of CIC St. Louis, to explore the innovation story of St. Louis, Missouri. St. Louis is one of America’s great historic innovation cities. Its position on the Mississippi River made it a gateway for goods, people, and ideas moving across the continent. Over time, that geographic advantage helped the city become home to major companies and industries, from Anheuser-Busch and McDonnell Douglas to Monsanto, Enterprise, Edward Jones, Mastercard, Square, and Block.John and I talk about how that history is shaping the next generation of innovation in St. Louis. The city has deep strengths in AgTech, biotech, geospatial technology, aerospace, fintech, and life sciences. It is also unusually affordable compared with many other major U.S. innovation markets, which gives startups and growing companies a chance to stretch their capital further.We discuss why St. Louis has become one of the world’s most important centers for agricultural technology and plant science, including the role of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, Washington University in St. Louis, and the region’s long-standing agricultural and bioscience expertise.We also explore the rise of geospatial technology in St. Louis, including the impact of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s major investment in the city, the Taylor Geospatial Institute, and the growing cluster of companies, universities, and researchers working in mapping, defense, location intelligence, agriculture, and data-driven infrastructure.John and I spend time on Cortex, the 200-acre innovation district at the heart of St. Louis’ startup and deep-tech ecosystem. Cortex was founded by Washington University in St. Louis, Saint Louis University, the University of Missouri–St. Louis, BJC HealthCare, and the Missouri Botanical Garden. What began as a former industrial area has become one of the most important innovation districts in the middle of the United States.We also talk about CIC St. Louis, which operates across multiple buildings in Cortex and includes flexible office space, coworking, private labs, shared wet labs, event space, and community infrastructure for entrepreneurs. CIC St. Louis is now one of the largest innovation hubs in the central United States, supporting companies across biotech, bioscience, software, services, fintech, and many other sectors.Along the way, John shares why he moved to St. Louis sight unseen more than a decade ago, what surprised him about the city, and why he believes St. Louis remains a hidden gem for founders, researchers, investors, and international companies looking to build in the United States.This conversation is about St. Louis, but it is also about a bigger question at the heart of this show: how do older industrial cities use their history, institutions, talent, infrastructure, and affordability to become powerful places for the next generation of innovation?About the studio:This show is the first Where Innovation Happens episode to be recorded in my new mobile podcast studio. It is a 28' Frank Lloyd Wright Limited Edition Airstream, named "Amaterasu," that I brought with me to St. Louis. I hope to record many future episodes in this beautiful traveling space. As the quintessential American midwestern architect, perhaps Wright would have appreciated that his namesake trailer was used to help tell a story about Midwest innovation.Featured guest: John Land, General Manager of CIC St. LouisHost: Tim Rowe, Founder and Chair of CICWhere Innovation Happens explores the people, places, and ecosystems that help entrepreneurs thrive — from startup hubs and innovation districts to the communities that make ambitious new ideas possible.

In this post, I share a "fireside chat" I was part of at the Housing Innovation Summit held on April 29th at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.The conversation was moderated by the UMass Lowell Vice Chancellor Anne Maglia. I was joined onstage by Kei Hayashi, Principal at BJH Advisors. Kei spent much of her career at New York City's Economic Development Corporation, and is a housing expert. We discussed why housing is one of the hardest and most important innovation challenges in the United States, and what we might be able to do about it leveraging the concept of innovation hubs. Other speakers included the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Secretary of Housing and Liveable Community, Juana Matias and the Chancellor of UMass Lowell, Dr. Julie Chen, and a slew of experts and technologists in the field. The full program can be found here: https://www.uml.edu/research/buildsmart/events.aspx.Our home state of Massachusetts, like many places around the world, does not have enough homes that people can afford.We explored why housing has been so resistant to innovation, even while sectors like software, biotech, finance, logistics, and advanced manufacturing have changed dramatically.A big part of the problem is that housing is not just one industry.It is made up of layered disciplines, including construction, finance, land use, zoning, policy, materials, community needs, workforce, infrastructure, and local politics all wrapped together.That makes it hard for startups and new technologies to break through.But it also means that the opportunity is enormous, if we can "fix" it.In this conversation, we explore whether it might be possible to build an innovation hub focused on reducing the cost of delivering new houses.We talk about some of the technology solutions, such as modular housing, factory-built construction, AI, robotics, advanced materials, new financing models, public-private partnerships, and the role of universities and cities in creating places where new ideas can actually be tested, but also some of the possible solutions in other areas such as housing finance.I share some of my learnings from co-founding CIC, LabCentral, MassRobotics, and other innovation hubs.I make the point that innovation ecosystems need not happen simply by accident: we can build them.Of course, they require strong people, shared tools, convening power, trust, capital, and a reason for the best people in a field to gather in the same place.That is true in life sciences in Kendall Square.It is true in film in Hollywood.It is true in finance in New York.And it may now be possible to create something similar for housing innovation in Lowell.Kei brings a thoughtful real estate and planning perspective to the conversation.She talks about the barriers that make housing hard to innovate in, the importance of public-private partnership, and the need to think not only about the cost of housing, but also about the quality of life inside the home itself.As mentioned, we also discuss a possible new model for financing housing innovation.New housing technologies often struggle because banks do not want to finance what has not yet been proven.That creates a gap between invention and deployment.One idea we discuss is whether public capital could help bridge that gap in a way that supports innovation, gets repaid (as opposed to a subsidy), and helps bring down the cost of housing at scale.This episode is about housing, but it is also about a larger question at the heart of this show:How do we build places where entrepreneurs, researchers, policymakers, builders, investors, and communities can work together to solve problems that are too big for any one organization to solve alone?Housing may be one of the oldest industries in the world.It may also be ready for one of the biggest waves of innovation it has ever seen.

In this episode of Where Innovation Happens, I sat down with Bekir Polat, Vice President of the Investment and Finance Office of the Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye. Bekir and his team were visiting the Boston area to meet with political and venture leaders. I had met Bekir's boss, Burak Dağlıoğlu, the President of the Investment Office of the Presidency of Türkiye, at Websummit in Doha and was looking forward to meeting him and showing him CIC.The role of Bekir and his team is to work to help international companies, investors, venture funds, and startups understand the opportunity in Türkiye.We recorded this conversation in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at CIC.---I have long thought of Türkiye as one of the most exciting countries in the world for innovation.It has a young and highly educated population, strong engineering talent, deep connections to Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. With its largest city, Istanbul, sitting literally on the border between Europe and Asia, it is incredibly centrally located. It is made more-so by Turkish Airlines, which boasts more non-stop fights than any other airline in the world, thus connecting Turkey extremely well all over the planet.Bekir and I talk about why Türkiye is increasingly important for venture capital, startups, and international companies.He explains Türkiye’s core value proposition, including its large and growing economy, young and tech-savvy workforce, strategic location, major infrastructure investments, and focus on improving the investment environment for companies already operating there.We also discuss some of Türkiye’s most interesting innovation sectors.These include defense technology, drones, gaming, fintech, SaaS, artificial intelligence, life sciences, logistics, fast delivery, and advanced manufacturing.We talk about Bayraktar drones, Türkiye’s growing role in defense exports, Istanbul’s strength in gaming studios, the rise of Turkish “Turcorns,” and the acquisition of Trendyol Go by Uber.Bekir also shares why Türkiye is working to connect more of its startups with global venture capital, especially at later funding stages.We discuss the importance of international conferences and events coming to Türkiye, including NATO, NATO Edge, COP31, GITEX AI Türkiye, TEKNOFEST, Take Off Istanbul, and SAHA.Along the way, we also talk about Türkiye’s soft power.Bekir points to Türkiye’s global diplomatic network, its role as a regional education hub, its humanitarian activity, its tourism industry, and even the worldwide popularity of Turkish television dramas.I also share a personal story about working with a Turkish packaging supplier for my wife Aya’s food business, and how impressed we were with the quality, service, English fluency, and reliability of the team we worked with in Istanbul.This conversation is about Türkiye, but it is also about a larger question at the heart of this show.How do countries build the conditions that allow talented people, ambitious founders, investors, universities, companies, and government institutions to turn potential into global innovation success?Featured guest:Bekir Polat, Vice President of the Investment and Finance Office of the Presidency of the Republic of TürkiyeHost:Tim Rowe, Founder and Chair of CICWhere Innovation Happens explores the people, places, and ecosystems that help entrepreneurs thrive — from startup hubs and innovation districts to the communities that make ambitious new ideas possible.

For this episode of Where Innovation Happens, I spoke with Bartosz “Bartek” Lipnicki, Managing Director of Endeavor Poland, about Poland’s fast-growing innovation ecosystem and the role Endeavor is playing globally in helping ambitious founders scale.Poland has become one of Europe’s most interesting startup markets, building on one of the region’s most impressive long-term economic growth stories since its transition to a market economy. Today, that momentum is showing up in a new generation of globally ambitious companies, including ElevenLabs, the Polish-founded AI voice company that recently crossed the decacorn threshold with an $11 billion valuation.Bartek gives us a window into what is happening on the ground in Poland: the founders, the ecosystem, the opportunities, and the growing confidence that world-class technology companies can be built from Warsaw and beyond.He also introduces us to Endeavor, a remarkable global nonprofit and founder network that supports high-impact entrepreneurs around the world. Endeavor describes itself as a global network “of, by, and for entrepreneurs,” focused on helping founders dream bigger, scale faster, and multiply their impact. Its model is built around the idea that successful entrepreneurs can transform economies not only by building major companies, but also by creating jobs, mentoring others, investing in the next generation, and inspiring future founders.In our conversation, Bartek explains how Endeavor works with companies that have found product-market fit and are ready to scale internationally. He describes Endeavor’s founder-to-founder support model, its global selection process, and the “multiplier effect” that happens when successful entrepreneurs return value to the ecosystem around them.We also discuss Polish success stories including ElevenLabs, ICEYE, Docplanner, Booksy, and CampusAI, as well as the broader question of how entrepreneurial ecosystems develop outside the usual startup capitals.I feel an immediate warmth toward Endeavor’s mission. It shares a core philosophy that has shaped much of my own work at CIC and Venture Café: that innovation can help fix the world, and that with the right support, great entrepreneurs can thrive far beyond the usual centers of venture capital.This conversation is about Poland, Endeavor, and a bigger idea: how we build innovation ecosystems in places where talent is abundant, ambition is rising, and the next generation of world-changing companies may already be taking shape.Topics include:Poland’s startup ecosystemEndeavor’s global modelHigh-impact entrepreneurshipElevenLabs and Poland’s first decacornICEYE and Polish space technologyFounder-to-founder support networksProduct-market fit and global scalingThe multiplier effect in entrepreneurshipHow innovation ecosystems grow outside the usual startup capitals

In this episode of Where Innovation Happens, I sit down with Patrick Walsh, CEO of Dogpatch Labs, one of Ireland’s most important startup and innovation hubs, based in an historic building in Dublin’s Docklands.Dogpatch Labs sits at the heart of Dublin’s technology ecosystem, surrounded by the European headquarters and major offices of companies like Google, Meta, Stripe, HubSpot, OpenAI, and Anthropic. But as Patrick explains, Dublin’s innovation story is not only about big tech. It is increasingly about the founders, engineers, investors, and young builders who are emerging from that ecosystem to create the next generation of Irish startups.Patrick and I discuss how Ireland’s innovation economy has evolved, why Dublin has become one of Europe’s most concentrated centers of international tech talent, and what still needs to change for Ireland to reach its full entrepreneurial potential. We talk about startup policy, stock options, angel investment, pension fund capital, and the kinds of physical infrastructure — including wet labs, hardware labs, and larger startup campuses — that can help founders build more ambitious companies.We also explore how Dogpatch Labs is supporting founders at multiple stages, from teenagers in its Patch youth program to deep-tech and biotech startups such as Meta-Flux, a Dublin-based company using AI to model disease biology and improve drug development decisions.Along the way, we compare Dublin with other innovation ecosystems including Paris, Boston, Cambridge, and Silicon Valley, and discuss how AI is changing the path of entrepreneurship itself. Patrick offers thoughtful advice for people considering whether to become founders, including why grit, resilience, optimism, and a genuine need to solve a problem matter more than simply wanting a “cool” startup career.This conversation is about Dublin, but it is also about a larger question at the heart of this show: how do we build places where entrepreneurs can do their best work, take bigger risks, and solve problems that matter?Topics covered:Dogpatch Labs and Dublin’s startup ecosystemIreland’s big tech presence and its impact on foundersGoogle, Meta, Stripe, HubSpot, OpenAI, and Anthropic in DublinThe role of startup hubs in building innovation economiesWhat Ireland can learn from Paris, Station F, Boston, and CambridgeStartup policy, stock options, angel investment, and pension capitalWhy physical innovation infrastructure mattersWet labs, hardware labs, biotech, and deep tech in IrelandYouth entrepreneurship and Dogpatch’s Patch programAI-native startups and the changing founder journeyMeta-Flux and the intersection of AI and pharmaWhy entrepreneurs matter for solving global problemsFeatured guest:Patrick Walsh, CEO of Dogpatch LabsHost:Tim Rowe, Founder and Chair of CICWhere Innovation Happens explores the people, places, and ecosystems that help entrepreneurs thrive — from startup hubs and innovation districts to the communities that make ambitious new ideas possible.

This is the core episode in my entire podcast. It is a deeper (~40 minute) version of the ~10 minute Episode 1 that I launched this show with.I share the entire sweep of my work, starting with the foundations of CIC to the work I am focused on now, and how we see innovation hubs evolving in the future. In this episode I introduce for the first time the concept of "innovation meccas": the ideal type of innovation hub. Please share this video with anyone interested in innovation hubs, and please leave your thoughts, questions and comments!

In this bonus episode, I share a panel discussion from WebSummit Qatar this year entitled "From Hubs to High Growth". I was pleased to appear on stage alongside Mohammed Al Emadi, the head of Investment and Incubation at Qatar Development Bank, and Burak Dağlıoğlu, the President of the Investment Office of the Presidency of Türkiye. We explored what is happening in the gulf, and around the world in terms of national innovation policy. Mohammed is a key player in Qatar's national innovation strategy. He drives Qatar's entrepreneurial ecosystem by overseeing venture capital investments, startup incubators, and specialized hubs. He manages a $100M+ VC fund, leads the Startup Qatar Investment Program, and manages incubators like QBIC and Qatar FinTech Hub, supporting over 450-600 startups.Burak leads national efforts to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) to Turkey. He focuses on high-value, sustainable sectors, including technology, energy, and e-mobility, while serving on the Board of the Türkiye Wealth Fund. We were fortunate to have Hamoud Almahmoud, Editor in Chief, Harvard Business Review Arabia, as our moderator.We framed the topic of the panel as follows: "Innovation no longer happens in isolation. Today’s most successful startups emerge from connected ecosystems where founders, investors, innovation hubs, corporates, and policymakers interact deliberately and at scale. This session brings together seasoned leaders from across the startup and investment landscape to explore how entrepreneurial ecosystems are evolving, where capital is moving, and what truly enables startups to grow and scale in an increasingly complex global environment."

This episode is a conversation recorded live in Tokyo with two of the world's most vibrant innovation driving organizations: France's Station F and UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA).Station F is the world's largest accelerator program, supporting over 1,000 companies per year. Its striking physical facility is a converted railway freight station. It comprises over 34,000 square meters of innovation space, making it the physically largest innovation facility in Europe. Since its opening in 2017, Station F has set the standard for what a national innovation hub should be, and it has inspired many heads of state to consider building similar facilities. In the interview, we hear from Station F's International Partnerships Lead, Joanna Gruau. ARIA stands for the Advanced Research and Invention Agency. It is the UK's so-called "moonshot agency". ARIA is actively deploying roughly 2 billion British pounds to advanced frame-breaking, over the horizon, innovation across 14 "opportunity areas". Its goal is to make all of our lives better, while strengthening the UK economy. ARIA is one of the most daring and exciting national innovation efforts anywhere in the world. Representing ARIA is Muji Ahmedi, who leads ARIA's Product Operations.

In this episode of Where Innovation Happens, I speak with my new friend, the mononymous Kavikrut, CEO of T-Hub. Located in Hyderabad, India. T-Hub is the largest single-building startup innovation space I am aware of anywhere the world, and is one of the "big four" largest innovation "campuses" (including multiple affiliated buildings) I know of worldwide. The others for reference are Station F, in Paris, LaunchPad in Singapore, and CIC's affiliated collection of facilities in Boston/Cambridge USA. Each legitimately lay claim to being "the biggest" innovation hub on some dimension (number of companies, funds invested, etc). What is important is the great things each does. I plan to cover each of them in depth, as well as many other great hubs around the world, in future episodes.In this episode I introduce both Kavikrut and the space of T-Hub itself (sharing some images of it), we learn about its origins and goals, and then Kavikrut and I speak broadly about what's changing, and what's important, for founder's in today's fast-changing world.

For the past 27 years, I’ve been building and operating places where innovation happens: hubs housing hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of startups at the heart of their cities’ innovation ecosystems. On this channel, I will share what I’ve learned and introduce the people shaping startup ecosystems around the world.I’m the founder of Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC), and I also co-founded LabCentral and MassRobotics. Each is the largest of its kind in the world. Over the years, I’ve worked on major innovation hub projects in the United States, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, and beyond — and I’ve spent a great deal of time thinking about what makes startup communities thrive.On Where Innovation Happens, I share what I’ve learned and introduce you to some of the extraordinary people building innovation ecosystems around the world. You’ll see inside leading innovation hubs, hear from the people who run them, and explore ideas about startups, cities, real estate, research, community, and the environments that help innovation grow.This first episode, Session 1, is a solo introduction: who I am, why I’m starting this show, and some of my core thinking about innovation hubs. This episode is just an intro to my work, and is a little over 10 minutes. My fourth episode, called "Innovation Meccas", comes in at just under 40 minutes. You can think of it as an expanded version of this intro. It goes into all of these topics more deeply.If you care about entrepreneurship, startup ecosystems, or how to build stronger places for innovators in your city or country, I think you’ll enjoy it.