BY SARAH MINER

Women are severely under-represented in science and technology professions in Connecticut and across the nation. Each year, the Connecticut Technology Council aims to highlight the work of women who ARE making it in those fields, with its Women of Innovation Awards. WNPR’s Sarah Miner went along.

Deirdre Arcand is sophomore at Mercy High School in Middletown. She says even in her generation she still sometimes finds she’s a gender pioneer.

“It’s definitely empowering as a girl to go to a competition and be able to be up there with all these boys… And to make a better robot than some of them do!”

Arcand is a part of the Mercy Tech Tigers – an all girls robotics team associated with FIRST. They’re one of two all girls teams in the state. Arcand had this message at the Women of Innovation Awards:

“It doesn’t matter what gender you are – you can achieve whatever you want.”

The event celebrated innovation in many different spheres. Jyl Camhi owns Great Play in Stamford, Connecticut– an interactive gym for children that helps develop motor skills, fitness and coordination.

“To me, it’s very important for children to live an active lifestyle.”

At the gym’s Interactive Arena, kids are mentally and physically engaged by eight projectors, a directional sound system and over a dozen sensing systems that make for a very real experience. As a small business owner, Camhi says hard work is at the root of innovation.

“Hard work first of al of course!. And I think just being creative and trying to come up with new and different ways to do things. You get separated from other people by the amount of effort and focus you give to any project you do and that turns into innovation and creativity.”

It wasn’t just business owners who were honored. Deb Santy is the Director of the Small Business Innovation Research office at Connecticut Innovations, she won an award for her dedication to nurturing small businesses, because as Santy says,

“That’s where great things happen.”

Santy also emphasized the importance of developing connections for both large and small businesses.

“These small guys need to be working with those big guys, because those guys don’t have huge research and development labs anymore. They really do open innovation, which means that they’re big and they’ve got some really, really, really smart people working in their companies, but they’re always are looking to partner with other really, really smart people that could be anywhere in the world. So my goal is to make sure they look at Connecticut first, and match them up.”

“We all know it takes a village to raise a company.”

That’s Matthew Nemerson, President and CEO of the Connecticut Technology Council, which organizes the awards.

“And women have known that and have these networks and that’s one of the reasons that as they get more prominence in big corporations, the corporations actually find that their innovation and their connections within the company are better.”

This year, 53 women were nominated as finalists for the Women of Innovation Awards and although there were only 12 winners, each has made a impact in the fields of science and technology. Lieutenant Governor Nancy Wyman:

“These women have broken through the glass ceiling. And not only have they broken through it – they are keeping it open for other women to come through.”

Wyman says it’s essential for the winners to know that the state is supporting them.

“Anybody that can create jobs, we want people to stay here and understand that government wants you her. We want you in this state – we need you to stay here. Bring your talents here and we’ll welcome it.”

This awards program has honored hundreds of innovative women over the years, and the organizers say they hope that’s helped to promote women in careers in science, technology, engineering and math throughout the state.

For WNPR, I’m Sarah Miner.

BY DON SEIFFERT

Connecticut Innovations (CI) has committed $150,000 in financing to Internet radio provider Raditaz LLC of South Glastonbury, Conn., through its Pre-Seed Fund.

Raditaz will use the financing to advance its product development and marketing activities, and has secured required matching funds from an individual investor, according to a written statement.

The company’s streaming music platform will be accessible across a variety of devices including computers, smartphones, tablets, Internet-enabled televisions, automobile dashboards, and audio equipment. It will enable listeners to rate songs and share stations or songs via social media, and also includes a location layer allowing users see stations that are trending in geographic areas of the country. It’s headed by founder and CEO Tom Brophy.

“Raditaz is an innovator in the online music sector, building on current streaming music technologies and innovating to enhance the user experience,” said Charlie Moret, CI managing director, business development, in the statement. “We are excited to support a company like Raditaz, that is at the intersection of streaming music and social networking.”

Connecticut Innovations is the state’s quasi-public authority responsible for technology-based economic development. Recent beneficiaries of its Pre-Seed fund include Queralt Inc. of North Haven, which makes cloud-based technology for businesses’ real-time tracking of physical assets and people,  and AdhereTx Corp., which has developed a secure web-based software platform to help manage and automate complex medication regimens in older adults.

BY LUTHER TURMELLE

BRIDGEPORT — Aquarion Water Co. continued on its buying spree, making a Marlborough-based utility its 29th acquisition in the past 15 months.

Terms of Aquarion’s deal to purchase Birchwood Water Association were not announced Wednesday. Brichwood Water has about 275 customers in the eastern Connecticut community.

“The integration of the Birchwood Water Association into our network will allow us to improve water quality for the community of Marlborough, as well aid future development in the town,” said Charles Firlotte, president and chief executive officer of Aquarion, which is based in Bridgeport.

The deal to purchase Birchwood comes a week and half after Aquarion officials announced they had signed an agreement to purchase United Water Connecticut Inc., which serves over 21,000 residents in Bethel, Brookfield, Newtown, New Milford, and Woodbury.

Aquarion now provides water to more than 610,000 people in 47 cities and towns throughout Connecticut, in addition to its service territories in Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Nine teams of budding entrepreneurs have been chosen to participate in Connecticut’s technology-startup investment pilot, authorities.

Each team gets $25,000 in aid from Connecticut Innovations Inc., the state’s quasi-public technology investment arm, to refine their tech concepts during a 10-week accelerator pilot program that begins Monday.

The winners were chosen from a pool of 33 applicants.

Five of the winning teams involve current students or recent graduates of Connecticut universities, including Quinnipiac, UConn and Yale, CI said. One team includes a 14-year-old entrepreneur and two are licensing technologies from Yale and Columbia University.

The teams are: Applivate, MeritBooster, Red Ox Technologies, Scaled Liquid Systems and Seldera, all of New Haven; Dealizio of East Lyme; eBrevia of Stamford; My Luck Club of New Canaan; and Snippet of Hamden.

Teams will be matched with mentors and professional resources and will receive guidance in launching a new business. Once the program ends in mid-May, each must be ready to launch and to make a pitch to a group of investors. 

BY RICHARD LEE

Joan Murdock-Davidson will oversee the company’s business development.

BY NANCI G. HUTSON

BY LINDA CONNER LAMBECK

HARTFORD — Easton and Redding officials are worried they may have consolidated school districts 55 years too soon.

Tucked into Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s voluminous education reform bill is an incentive for school districts to consolidate. Those that do would be rewarded. Districts with fewer than 1,000 students and spend more per pupil than the state average, would be penalized.

So interspersed Wednesday among the dozens of speakers who appeared before the Legislature’s education committee to support increased funding for charter schools and school districts, were a handful of Region 9 officials who cautioned against some unintended consequences in the 163-page document.

Based on current population projections, all three districts are each likely to be subject to the financial penalties, said Christopher Hocker, a member of the Region 9 school board. Student enrollment in Easton and Redding is just over 1,000 students. In Region 9, there are fewer than 1,000 students.

Region 9 is a consolidated district of a single high school, Joel Barlow, which serves both Easton and Redding. Easton and Redding each has its own elementary school, middle school and school board. All three boards have a common superintendent and central office. It’s been that way since 1957.

Hocker called the governor’s proposal arbitrary, heavy-handed and perverse because it ignores efficiencies already under way and threatens to penalize towns that dare spend above the state average on their students.

“We’ve already done it,” said state Rep. John Shaban, R-Redding. He called the plan a poorly conceived attempt at forced regionalization and a blunderbluss approach to education control. “You have to provide (an exception) for small towns such as mine that have already done what Section 11 seeks to achieve.”

Others wondered what would happen to small districts that want to consolidate, but couldn’t find willing partners.

Benjamin Barnes, secretary of the Office of Policy and Management, said it was not his intent to penalize districts already doing what the state is hoping to accomplish. He said he is willing to work to clarify language in the bill.

Commissioner of Education Stefan Pryor said although changes may be made in the bill, this is “our moment” and that education reform will happen this year despite widespread objection to proposals that would change teacher training, evaluations and tenure.

“Our students have waited long enough,” he said. “Let’s end the waiting.”

Others at the hearing talked in support of increased funding of charter schools. Malloy is proposing increasing funding from $9,400 to $12,000, but with $1,000 of the increase coming from districts where charter school students live.

The support came not only from students and staff at the schools, but some local school officials.

Derby Schools Superintendent Steve Tracy said students in some communities have too few choices and he applauded efforts to give the state a stronger charter school law. In addition to funding, the state would also allow the creation of more state funded charter schools and locally funded charter schools.

Robert Trefry, chairman of the Bridgeport Board of Education, said he liked the idea to create local charter schools as long as local districts retained the authority to monitor such schools and intervene if necessary. The governor would give districts an extra $3,000 per pupil if it created such a school.

Lais Lima, a senior at Bridge Academy, a state-funded charter school in Bridgeport since 1997, said the school gave her a close-knit family atmosphere and a shot at college. “There is no hiding from Mr. (Timothy) Dutton, the school headmaster. When he yells your name down the hall, then you are in trouble,” said Lima. She said the benefits outweighed the lack of a volleyball team or Advanced Placement classes.

Sandy Lefkowitz, a board member at Bridge Academy Charter School in Bridgeport, said extra funding would ensure that programs like the art of filmmaking she brought to the school four years ago could be continued. She called the state’s funding of charter schools an investment.

A day earlier, Claudia Phillips showed up at the Capitol with her three children and niece to express their gratitude to the governor for proposing to expand charter schools and funding. Her twin daughters attend Achievement First middle school in Bridgeport. Her son, a fifth-grader, attends Thomas Hooker School.

Phillips said her daughters are challenged much more than her son.

“We want our children to be challenged,” she said.

lclambeck@ctpost.com, 203-330-6218; http://twitter.com/lclambeck

BY CHRISTINE STUART

Wearing shirts that said, “Charter Schools Are Public Schools,“ a group of parents, teachers, and students from the state’s 17 charter schools came to the Capitol to help Gov. Dannel P. Malloy make his case to the General Assembly.

Dacia Toll, CEO and president of Achievement First, which operates nine charter schools in Connecticut, said she’s been coming to Hartford for 13 years advocating for more funding for charters. It took 13 years, but “we finally have a governor who faces down that achievement gap and says, ‘not on my watch’,” Toll told the crowd Tuesday.

And while the group didn’t get every they wanted Malloy’s budget increases the state’s per-pupil funding for charter schools from $9,400 to $11,000 while increasing the contribution from local school districts to $1,000 per student.

The group had a chance to thank Malloy with posters and chants for the boost in funding when he made an appearance at the rally outside the state Capitol.

“There are a lot of people who think my talking about closing the achievement gap is fantasy, but you’re living proof that it’s not fantasy,” Malloy told the crowd. “A lot of people think that in urban environments people are less anxious to be educated and will find other things to do with their time and you’re living proof that’s not the case.”

But the legislation, which is 163-pages long, makes many changes, some such as tenure are controversial, while others aren’t.

Malloy acknowledged that these reforms need to be adopted by the legislature in a relatively short period of time “in which we either win, or we lose.”

“This is our day, this is our opportunity,” Malloy said. “There has never been a moment where we were closer to success or closer to disappointment, but disappointment in this setting will set us back many, many years.”

But Malloy accepts that his proposal will have to make it through the legislature and may not come out looking exactly as he proposed it.

“There’s a process and I engaged in that process today,” Malloy said. “You know governor’s have not appeared before committee’s too often and had not taken questions, except under subpoena.”

Sen. Minority Leader John McKinney, R-Fairfield, who also spoke at the charter school rally, said he thinks Malloy wants “all of it,” but whether he gets it remains to be seen.

McKinney said in terms of Malloy’s proposals to close the achievement gap he’s on board, but there are some things such as forced regionalization that he doesn’t like and still things such as the nexus between tenure and certification he needs to research further.

“It’s an important step. It’s a long overdue step, but I think we’re going to learn once they pass how the teacher evaluations work,” McKinney said.

The most controversial part of Malloy’s plan is tenure and how teachers will be evaluated and certified by the state. The two teacher unions and several teachers spoke against that part of the legislation Tuesday during an Education Committee public hearing. The charter school students testified to the Appropriations Committee Tuesday evening.