Emerging Enterprise Center Blog - Commentary and Analysis For Entrepreneurs and Startups

There has been surprisingly little (any at all?) buzz in the entrepreneurial and venture community around the joint meeting of the FCC and the FDA at the end of last week.  There is surprisingly little buzz around the combination of broadband and medical devices.  But, there is surprisingly much R&D in the space (and it will grow massively, I predict). There are today heart monitoring, glucose monitoring and responsive intervention devices that use broadband. All these devices, and many more that exist or will exist, are subject to regulation from the FCC and the FDA. If these two agencies don’t coordinate, it will be really... More

This could be the answer to a maiden’s prayers – if you happen to be a tech company developing an innovative use of broadband and you want free (non- dilutive) equity.  Buried deep in the bowels of the new stimulus law (a/k/a American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) is an allocation of at least $250 million for innovative uses of broadband for sustainable adoption.  The gist of it is as follows:... More

On Friday I participated in a panel on general topic of funding at a conference entitled New England & The Broadband Recovery Act. Under the broadband portion of the stimulus package approximately $7.2 billion has been allocated to various broadband and related activities. As with the stimulus package as a whole, the main goal is to create jobs, but there are other aims as well. Others have questioned the wisdom of brining 100 megabit per second connectivity to remote places, but that’s the goal – like it or not. There are other aspects of this act that are terrifying and there are some hidden... More