At innovation summit, Wu seeks stronger ties to business sector

20 years ago, MA mandated residents to buy health insurance or pay a tax penalty. Unaffordable healthcare inflation followed along with new mandates, rising premiums, fewer choices & increased provider payments without real transparency or efficiency standards. Taxpayer costs soared; working family income growth suffered. Small businesses & their workforces have consistently faced annual double digit premium increases. Healthcare cost reforms are long overdue.

Top executives from Boston’s business sectors – including the CEOs of John Hancock and Vertex Pharmaceuticals – gathered Wednesday morning on Harvard University’s Allston campus to chat with Mayor Michelle Wu and members of her cabinet about maintaining the city’s position as a global hub and the future of its innovation economy.

The conversation soon swerved to potholes. “It came up five more times in the conversations afterwards, too,” Wu quipped when she emerged from the session to speak with reporters.

There is more of a throughline between innovation and potholes than you might think.

“Potholes are the tangible example of how a very small, fixable problem, if you do it right and systematically, can end up improving everyone's lives across the board,” Wu said of one of her favorite topics. “Or on the flip side, one small little thing can end up tripping up or irritating the lives of tens of thousands of commuters if you don't get to it right away.”

Potholes can also be “a symbol of if we can fill and patch up some of the gaps in other areas for how this region works together,” Wu added. “We have the potential to smooth the road, to smooth the pathway to an even more vibrant economy and the innovations and life-saving cures and all the good that will come out of it.”

Some may see the summit as a welcome overture, as she has clashed with parts of Boston’s business community, such as the commercial real estate sector when its leaders opposed her property tax shift proposal. The summit also comes as the city braces for an economic slowdown and a weakening tax base.

Reporters were invited to sit in on the summit’s last hour, which included Wu and economist Ed Glaeser, her former professor, on the stage after several of the industry leaders summarized their group discussions at small tables. Chris Cocks, the Hasbro CEO whose company plans a move to Boston later this year, also attended, as did JLL’s Travis McCready and Yvonne Hao, COO of Flagship Pioneering and Gov. Maura Healey’s former economic development chief.

The questions up on the big screen behind them, meant to prompt debate among the attendees, asked, “Where is Boston’s innovation engine currently getting stuck?” among other questions. Attendees talked about the separation between different business sectors, and the need to fix and strengthen ties between corporations and academia, as well as life sciences and tech, which rarely are together, whether due to language or cultural differences.

Wu also asked for input as she searches for a new economic development chief after the departure of Segun Idowu, and said she heard specific suggestions about using her social media presence to highlight new companies and the milestones of more established ones.

San Francisco and Silicon Valley also came up. Wu said she has pitched a bicoastal summit to Mayor Dan Lurie. “The idea is they are a growing hotspot for AI and some of the best-known companies that are changing the world in that space. We are, and remain, the hotbed for healthcare, life sciences and biotech,” she said. “And it is in the overlap of these two fields, in applied AI, particularly around health and life sciences, that we're going to see some of the most revolutionary innovations in the history of mankind. And if our two regions can get together and power up on that front that will help both of us.”

That may initially sound like more talk on tap when action is needed. But Wu noted that one takeaway from the innovation summit was that people don’t talk enough in-person, in the same room, across different disciplines. “One of the actions is actually creating space to talk more, creating the opportunity for this kind of cross-disciplinary exchange,” she said.

Flagship Pioneering and fitness tech firm Whoop have volunteered to host the next two iterations of the group of industry leaders that had just met with her, she said.

Some of the truest sentences said about potholes come from author Jack Beatty at a 2013 tribute to Mayor Tom Menino: “If it's the pothole that's been knocking hell out of your tires, it's the pothole that really matters to you. And to have somebody say, ‘Because it matters to you, it matters to me,’ I think that says ‘I respect you.’” What are some of the city’s economic potholes? Send me your thoughts: [email protected].

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9:30 | Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll offers remarks at the Arc of Greater Haverhill-Newburyport Merrimack Valley’s legislative reception. | Northern Essex Community College, Tech Center, 100 Elliott Street, Haverhill

10:00 | MA YouthBuild Coalition holds YouthBuild Day, an event sponsored by Sen. Sal DiDomenico. YouthBuild offers programs for young people between the ages of 16 and 24 that combine academic instruction with workforce development training. The coalition provides its member programs with resources like peer support, technical assistance and funding applications. | Great Hall, State House, Boston

10:00 | Special Olympics Day at the State House is sponsored by Rep. Sean Garballey. | Nurses Hall, State House, Boston

11:00 | Education Secretary Stephen Zrike, House Ways and Mean Chairman Aaron Michlewitz, House Assistant Majority Leader Alice Peisch, Early Education and Care Commissioner Amy Kershaw, Higher Education Commissioner Noe Ortega, and other state and local officials celebrate the launch of the Early Childhood Educator Loan Repayment Program, the first state loan repayment program created exclusively for early education and care professionals. | Ellis Early Learning, 66 Berkeley St., Boston

6:00 | Republican candidate for governor Brian Shortsleeve holds a Cape Cod delegate meet and greet. | Tugboats at Hyannis Marina, Yarmouth | Register

Join legislators and thought leaders for a timely forum on the AI revolution in Massachusetts. Explore the challenges and opportunities of AI policy on Thursday, May 7, at the MCLE (Boston). RSVP!

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VISA POLICY: The Trump administration’s visa policies may lead to three Iranians at UMass Dartmouth having to return to Iran after producing political art critical of the regime. – New Bedford Light

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