Momentum is building in Hartford for an influx of new technology companies to shape and strengthen the future of the city’s insurance industry, long a bastion of steady habits and stagnant growth.
The first seeds of that transformation were on display Wednesday at a showcase of the inaugural Hartford InsurTech Hub, a program — known as an accelerator — that helped boost the growth of 10 startups.
Each develops next-generation insurance products, like cybersecurity for smart homes and automated water systems that prevent leaks and floods in apartment buildings. Over four months in Hartford, they refined, and sometimes upended, their business plans, perfected their pitches and forged connections with local companies.
With that first accelerator over — and at least three of the high-tech startups planning permanent moves to Hartford — the region’s other main industries of health and aerospace are looking to build similar excitement around their fields.
Their efforts fall under a quasi-public initiative called Innovation Places, organized by CTNext — a division of the state’s lead investment arm, Connecticut Innovations. It’s a five-year, $30 million program meant to foster economic development in the cash-strapped capital and three other regions, Stamford, New Haven and the Groton-New London area.
In all, CTNext committed $2 million this year to Hartford’s regional initiative — 95 percent of which had been matched as of January, when organizers released their latest progress report.
And by happenstance, the first major plans materialized around the insurance industry, Hartford Innovation Places project manager Michelle Cote said — in part because local leaders knew they wanted to hold an accelerator and quickly found a company to run it, UK-based Startupbootcamp.
CTNext committed $750,000 to run the program, and Travelers, Cigna, The Hartford and other insurance companies matched that grant and agreed to spend $1.5 million to run the next two accelerators, according to the strategic plan.
On Thursday, Cote said she hopes people will look to the insurance industry for a glimpse of what’s coming to Hartford’s medical technology and manufacturing fields.
“It gave us the ability to showcase the kind of impact we want to have around the other industries,” Cote said. “It just takes us a little more time to do that.”
A MedTech Innovation District
The Hartford area is a natural corridor for medical technology thanks to Hartford Hospital, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center and UConn Health in Farmington, as well as Trinity College, which offers hands-on health fellowships and academic programs on microscopy and information technology.
Hartford Hospital has its own national training lab, the Center for Education, Simulation and Innovation, which grew out of simulation-based training the hospital has been doing since 2000. Doctors, nurses and first responders run drills and practices on everything from CPR to mass casualty incidents at the 30,000-square-foot space.
The center’s vacant third floor will soon house the new Hartford Biomedical Innovation Institute, a center for entrepreneurs and scientists to develop new products and digital health technologies, with support from Trinity and the UConn School of Business, according to the Hartford Innovation Places strategic plan.
It’s the first step in creating a new MedTech Innovation District in Hartford’s South End. The organizers will likely announce a larger-scale program — their own version of the insurance accelerator — in the next six months and their plans to redevelop some of Hartford HealthCare’s properties in the South End next year, says Cote.
“It’s been a lot more of organizational work behind the scenes over the last six months to figure out the right mechanism to launch something similar,” she said. “We’re right on the cusp of really defining something with great potential for the city of Hartford.”
First, she says organizers want to help the entrepreneurs already living and working in Hartford by providing them better support and new programming. Once they become full-fledged businesses in need of lab and office space, the hospitals and Trinity may be able to redevelop buildings to meet their needs.
To date, the MedTech organizers have only announced the new innovation institute at Hartford Hospital’s training lab. Startups and health care companies will work toward clinical trials, particularly in the fields of minimally invasive and cardiovascular surgical technologies, critical and intensive care, emergency services, pre- and post-acute care, and behavioral health.
The institute will also include a Digital Health Technology Program for things like telehealth — delivering medical care through smartphones and computers — and population health assessment tools, which use big batches of information to find trends affecting a group.
CTNext is contributing about $440,000 this year and about $1.4 million over the next two years to create and run the institute, according to the strategic plan.
Partner organizations, including Hartford Hospital, CCMC, UConn and Trinity, plan to spend more than $3 million on the district over the next three years, in cash and in-kind contributions, the plan shows.
Boosting Aerospace And Advanced Manufacturing
Like in other states, Connecticut’s manufacturing industry is grappling with growing demand and a shortage of highly-trained workers.
The University of Hartford, Goodwin College and the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology in East Hartford are making some of their manufacturing equipment available to the public to help support local innovators in the field.
It’s the first step those partners are taking while they decide how to move forward with a major workforce development program.
“We’ve been focused on building a robust talent pipeline to fill the incredible amount of jobs that are going to be needed to meet demand in the next three to 10 years in the industry,” Cote said.
The programs launched to date are relatively simple and low-budget. CTNext plans to contribute a total of $120,000 this year to a few different initiatives, which partner organizations have matched with nearly $100,000 in money and staff time, according to the strategic plan.
Through the Technology Labs Assistance Program, which CCAT launched in mid-January, people can submit a single proposal to use the high-tech, expensive equipment at any of the three facilities.
Trinity College is separately leading an effort to increase the number of robotics teams at underserved, area schools, according to Cote. The college is working with the University of Hartford to hold an industry-focused student robotics competition this spring and summer.
Meanwhile, Goodwin College is working with Hartford and East Hartford public, technical, alternative and magnet schools to offer career day-type programs through its classroom on wheels, a portable training lab first built in 2016 to train workers at local manufacturing companies, according to Todd Andrews, Goodwin’s vice president of economic and strategic development.
Finally, CTNext is providing some funds to MakerspaceCT, a 20,000-square-foot space for artists, hobbyists, engineers and inventors being built out in the G. Fox Co. building in downtown Hartford.
It’s the privately-funded work of New England Maker Summit founders Devra Sisitsky and Bryan Patton. The space is opening fully by late summer or early fall, and CTNext has committed $45,000 — matched by partners — to offer a number of people yearly memberships.
Sisitsky said she was heartened that the first round of classes, which began in March, quickly reached capacity at about 45 people. Eight more joined a waitlist for the introductory courses in 3-D printing and Raspberry Pi, a tiny, affordable computer used for programming.
“I hope its an indicator of things to come,” she said.
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