Where Innovation Happens by Tim Rowe

Tim Rowe
  • 5.0 (4)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Weekly

Welcome to Where Innovation Happens. For 27 years, I’ve built and operated hubs housing hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of startups. On this podcast, 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 type in the world. Over the years, I’ve worked on dozens of major innovation hub projects. On this show, I share what I’ve learned and introduce you to some of the leaders of this field.

  1. 1d ago

    22: Community + Entrepreneurship

    This is an episode from my archives. I’m taking you on a 14 minute time machine ride.Back in 2013, two close friends living in Grand Rapids asked me to come out and speak at TEDxGrandRapids about the work I was doing at Cambridge Innovation Center. Sometimes when you give a talk, everything seems to come out the way you hoped it would. This was one of those talks. Perhaps that is why the original TEDx version has now been watched more than 13,000 times.Since YouTube does not give me a way to pull an outside YouTube video into this podcast feed, I have uploaded it here fresh. It is the same talk, with improved captions and translations.Preparing for this talk forced me to crystallize some ideas I had been developing for years about innovation, entrepreneurship, and community. The examples are very much from 2013. Smartphones were only about six years old. Hybrid cars still felt new. We were thinking about Tahrir Square, the spread of the internet, and the Boston Marathon bombing. But the central argument has not changed much for me.I start with a simple idea: innovation may be one of our most powerful tools for making the world better. I use the old “teach a person to fish” saying, but take it in a different direction. What if instead of giving someone a fish, or teaching them to fish, we invent a better fishing rod? A successful innovation can improve life not just for one person or one community, but for millions or even billions of people.The question then becomes: how do we get more of it?My answer in this talk comes down to three ingredients: startup founders willing to build something from almost nothing; physical proximity to other people doing the same thing; and a culture where people actively help one another.I talk about research from Bell Labs showing just how dramatically collaboration falls as people get physically farther apart. This is an old study but a great study. Since then many newer studies have arrived at the same conclusion. I talk about startup communities as a modern version of a barn raising, where investors, customers, colleagues, and fellow entrepreneurs all help build something that no founder could build alone. And I describe what I was seeing at CIC in Kendall Square: once you create a dense enough concentration of entrepreneurs, other resources begin gathering around them too.One point I especially like revisiting is that innovation does not belong to Silicon Valley, Cambridge, or any other single place. Important innovations have come from all over the world. The raw material is everywhere. The challenge is to create communities that help people turn ideas into things that actually work in the real world.Thirteen years later, I am still working on that same problem, and still absolutely loving learning about, and teaching about, this topic.Featured speaker: Tim Rowe, Founder and Executive Chair of Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC)Host: Tim Rowe, Where Innovation HappensTopics: innovation, entrepreneurship, startup communities, innovation ecosystems, innovation hubs, collaboration, proximity, startup culture, Kendall Square, Cambridge Innovation Center, CIC, TEDxGrandRapids, economic development, venture capital, community building#WhereInnovationHappens #CICNow #Innovation #Entrepreneurship #StartupCommunities #InnovationEcosystems

  2. 5d ago

    21: Innovation in Cities - Burhan Azeem - Cambridge Vice Mayor and Massachusetts Senate Candidate

    In this episode of Where Innovation Happens, I sit down with Burhan Azeem, an MIT graduate, startup guy, Cambridge Vice Mayor and City Councillor, and candidate for the Massachusetts State Senate.I invited Burhan to the show because he has an unusual perspective: he has built companies, worked inside the startup ecosystem, and then moved into government to try to change some of the rules that shape how our cities actually work. I wanted to find out what he has learned.We started by asking what cities could do differently to make life better? The challenge of creating more housing was a big part of our conversation. Burhan compares our housing shortage to a drought: we can fight over how to allocate a scarce resource, debating who should pay what, or we can figure out how to create more of it. We both agree that there is a lot of opportunity to do the latter in housing. We talked about some possible pieces of the solution: more flexible zoning and permitting, accessory dwelling units, factory-built housing, standardization, and why we still build most homes as one-off projects rather than taking advantage of the efficiencies we use to manufacture almost everything else.We moved on to transportation. Burhan makes the interesting observation that cars are an “anti-density technology”: they work less well as density increases. In contrast, mass transit becomes more useful as density increases. We talked about why America has become so slow and expensive at building transit, what Boston might learn from places such as Tokyo, and how autonomous vehicles and AI could create entirely new transportation models.We also got into some practical examples of government innovation. Why is it so difficult to operate a food truck? Do layers of permits and processes suppress entrepreneurship? And when regulations have accumulated over decades, how do we distinguish rules that protect people from rules that simply make useful things harder to do?Then we turned toward AI and the future of work. Nobody knows exactly how AI will change work, but Burhan laid out three possible paths: (1) AI could change jobs gradually, as previous technologies have; (2) it could dramatically reduce the amount of human labor society needs; or (3) it could displace particular groups of workers quickly enough to create real pain, while impacting others less. We discussed what government should be watching for as this unfolds, and whether rising productivity could ultimately give people more time to learn, create, and live—perhaps even leading to something like a 20-hour workweek.This conversation was about problem-solving. Burhan came to MIT wanting to work on problems in the physical world, and he tends to think like an engineer: define the problem, understand the system, choose the variables that matter most, and then actually try to make something happen. His priorities—housing, transportation, and AI policy—are also some of the biggest questions facing innovation-driven cities around the world.Featured guest: Burhan Azeem, Vice Mayor of Cambridge and candidate for Massachusetts State SenateHost: Tim Rowe, Founder & Executive Chair of CICTopics: innovation in cities, urban innovation, Cambridge Massachusetts, Boston innovation ecosystem, housing affordability, zoning reform, housing innovation, modular housing, ADUs, public transportation, MBTA, transit innovation, autonomous vehicles, AI policy, artificial intelligence, future of work, government innovation, permitting reform, startup ecosystems, entrepreneurship, economic development, Massachusetts politics#WhereInnovationHappens #CICNow #UrbanInnovation #Housing #Transportation #AI #FutureOfWork #CambridgeMA #Boston #InnovationEcosystems

  3. Aug 28

    20: US Congressman and US Senate Candidate Seth Moulton: Supporting Innovation in Washington

    This episode is a little different from most of Where Innovation Happens. Instead of visiting an innovation hub or talking with an entrepreneur, I sat down with Congressman Seth Moulton, who is running for the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts, to ask a question I care a lot about: what can government do to help innovation flourish — and what can it do to get out of the way?We recorded the conversation live at Venture Café in Kendall Square, surrounded by entrepreneurs, scientists, students, and people building new companies. That setting shaped the discussion. We focused less on political theater and more on practical questions that matter to people trying to build things.Housing came up first. Massachusetts has extraordinary universities, talent, capital, and research, but it is increasingly difficult for people to afford to live here. Seth makes the case that housing and transportation are deeply connected, and argues for modern electrified regional rail, including connecting North and South Station, to make more communities practical places to live and work.We also spend a lot of time on AI. Seth argues that the United States should embrace AI and compete to lead globally, while also making sure the technology is safe and that data centers do not simply push costs onto local communities. We talk about job displacement and what government might do to help people transition without trying to stop innovation itself.From there, the conversation ranges widely: U.S.–China competition and preventing a war over Taiwan; immigration and entrepreneurship; nuclear energy and fusion; FDA modernization; defense innovation; and the federal SBIR program that has helped many young technology companies get started.A theme across the conversation was that our governing institutions can struggle to keep up with the people they are meant to serve. Seth argues that government should modernize old systems, support early-stage innovation, and work across party lines to get useful things done. He points to his work co-authoring the legislation that created 988, the national mental health crisis line, as an example of government making a concrete difference.I have spent much of my career thinking about the conditions that allow entrepreneurs and innovators to succeed: community, talent, capital, labs, universities, and places where people can meet each other. Public policy is part of that environment too. Decisions about housing, transportation, research funding, immigration, energy, regulation, and procurement can either expand what innovators are able to do or make it much harder.Whatever your politics, I think this is a useful conversation about what a more innovation-minded government could look like, and about the role entrepreneurs and scientists can play in shaping it.Featured guest: Congressman Seth Moulton, U.S. Representative for Massachusetts’s Sixth District, Marine veteran, and candidate for the U.S. Senate.Host: Tim Rowe, Founder and Executive Chair of Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC) and host of Where Innovation Happens.Topics and keywords: Seth Moulton, Ed Markey, Massachusetts Senate race 2026, innovation policy, entrepreneurship, startups, artificial intelligence, AI policy, data centers, housing affordability, regional rail, North South Rail Link, SBIR, FDA modernization, biotech, defense innovation, fusion energy, immigration, China, Taiwan, industrial policy, government innovation, Kendall Square, Venture Café, Cambridge Innovation Center, CICNow, Where Innovation Happens, Tim Rowe.#WhereInnovationHappens #SethMoulton #InnovationPolicy #AI #Massachusetts #CICNow

  4. Jun 15

    19: [Bonus] Selecting Amazing Candidates to Work at Your Business Part 2: How to Interview

    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

  5. Jun 15

    18: Exploring the Role of Political Leaders in Innovation: Dan Koh, Candidate for US Congress

    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.

  6. Jun 14

    17: Startup Incubation in Berlin - A conversation with Marvin Göldner

    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 Berlin Host: 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.

  7. Jun 12

    16: Berlin entrepreneur spotlight: Jorge Ferreira and his company LIQUIDLOOP

    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.

  8. Jun 12

    15: Strengthening the Berlin Innovation Community - with Ewa Geresz, Director of Venture Cafe Berlin

    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.

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About

Welcome to Where Innovation Happens. For 27 years, I’ve built and operated hubs housing hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of startups. On this podcast, 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 type in the world. Over the years, I’ve worked on dozens of major innovation hub projects. On this show, I share what I’ve learned and introduce you to some of the leaders of this field.

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