Two researchers, in a new book identifying “emerging hotspots of global innovation,” have included Albany on their list of those hotspots.

In The Smartest Places on Earth: Why Rustbelts Are the Emerging Hotspots of Global Innovation, authors Antoine Van Agtmael and Fred Bakker describe the collaborations among universities, private companies, and the roles of “connectors,” personalities who can foster innovation and cooperation, capitalizing on the expertise that already may reside in an area.

The resulting “brainbelts,” as they call them, foster advanced manufacturing techniques in an environment that’s an attractive place to live and work.

Albany, with its thriving nanotechnology and semiconductor sector, leads the book, and is referenced often as the authors visit other emerging hotspots.

Those include Akron, specializing in polymers; Minneapolis (medical devices); Raleigh-Durham (LEDs, materials, biosciences); and Portland (bioscience). Internationally, brainbelts the book focuses on include Eindhoven (semiconductors, materials); Lund-Malmo, Sweden (life sciences, materials); Oulu, Finland (medical instruments, wireless); Dresden, Germany (semiconductors); and Zurich, Switzerland (life science).

Alain Kaloyeros is identified as the critical connector who brought together diverse groups of people and persuaded them to participate in what became the NanoTech complex at SUNY Polytechnic Institute.

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By Eric Anderson on April 4, 2016 at 6:16 PM