Author: Melissa Ferrigno


Report Highlights Risks, Rewards of Starting a Business

NewsTimes.com – They may be young and small, but collectively they are a force to be reckoned with in the overall economy.

They are startups, and they account for one-third of all small businesses and a large portion of innovation and productivity, according to the Report on Startup Firms, the second in a series of reports based on the 2016 Small Business Credit Survey. Conducted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and released last week, the report defines startups as small businesses that were five years or younger in 2016 and had full- or part-time employees.


UConn Innovation Quest: Dermatat

CTStartup Podcast– Tattoos were once considered taboo and the realm of weirdos and ne’er-do-wells, but in the 21st century body ink has gone mainstream. Alas, that also means a number of tattoos done in questionable taste, and despite many wonders of modern medicine, the only current treatment for tattoo removal is both painful and expensive.

But what if tattoo removal was as simple as applying a band-aid? That’s the idea behind Dermatat, a concept straight out of UConn’s Innovation Quest business incubator. Tune in to check out what could be the next revolution in the tattoo industry.



Manufacturing Enters Era of Artificial Intelligence

Industry 4.0 concept

UConn’s MEM Program Gives Students Unique Mix of Business, Engineering Skills for Technology Revolution

In just the past seven or so years, the world of manufacturing has inaugurated the next phase of its own evolution with a new set of guiding principles known as “Industry 4.0.” Just as the transitions from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age to the Iron Age marked periods of radical, sweeping advances for the human species, Industry 4.0 marks the next, drastically different epoch of production technology. Continue Reading


Mansfield Man Eyes New Ways To Take Macro Photos

Hartford Courant – In high school science classes in Pennsylvania, Mark Smith used just a standard, tabletop microscope to magnify the samples of minerals and rocks that would inspire him to become a geologist.

But in his free time, the teenager was helping to build a much more powerful device — a macro photography system that could compete with the best on the market to produce ultra-high resolution, full-color images of the tiniest things on Earth.


CT’s Recession Lasted Much Longer Than You Think

Hartford Business Journal – While many people consider the Great Recession to have lasted only two years, Connecticut’s economic malaise lasted much longer. In fact, measured by real output or gross state product, Connecticut’s economy actually shrank for seven years, even as the state regained jobs lost during the Great Recession.



Folta to Oversee Professional Group

Westfair Communications – University of Connecticut management professor Timothy B. Folta has been elected to a five-year term overseeing the Business Policy and Strategy (BPS) Division of the Academy of Management. The academy is an organization of management educators, with more than 19,000 members in 120 countries. In addition to hosting conferences and supporting research, it publishes six research journals. The BPS division has more than 5,000 members.


UConn Innovation Quest: CRISPR – X

CTStartup Podcast– You may not have heard of it, but CRISPR (that stands for “clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats”) could change the face of modern medicine as we know it. Many startups are involved in trying to utilize CRISPR to cure diseases, but a couple of college students may have already beaten them to the punch.

UConn students Ryan Englander and Nandan Tumu are developing a way to use CRISPR as a means of fighting off certain kinds of cancers even after they’re developed. Could these two college students find the cancer breakthrough that has eluded modern medicine for so long?