Spencer Trask develops innovative ideas into world-changing companies. We are private investors who have backed some of the most influential ventures in technology and healthcare. Today, we are pioneering the use of incentive-based collaboration to accelerate the growth and success of our missions.
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Chemical synapses underlie perception and thought, and each of us has around 500 billion. Tap the 6.8 billion people on the planet and almost any problem can be solved. This is the mission of InnoCentive, the world leader in open innovation.
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Using different wavelengths (colors) of laser light to carry signals multiplies the capacity of each optical fiber in the network. This innovation by Ciena transformed the global net into an information superhighway. The Wall Street Journal called Ciena's IPO a "Jackpot for the Record Books."
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Empower patients. It's the savings principle driving healthcare reform. It's based on 40 years of work by Dr. John Wennberg, that proved informed patients drive down costs and improve care (i.e. good consumers). Partnering with Wennberg Health Dialog is the fastest growing company in healthcare services.
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Harnessing the 'Cognitive Surplus' to Drive Value Creation
August 4, 2010

1 Trillion hours each year. That's the amount of free brain time Clay Shirky, author of 'Cognitive Surplus,' says is available annually within the world's educated population. Our challenge lies in understanding how to leverage the connected world and draw upon our natural human instincts to create and share -- to do something vs. doing nothing.

The Other Side of the Cloud: The rise in cloud-computing and its environmental and economic impact
July 22, 2010

Named by Gartner as the "Top Tech Trend for 2010," cloud-computing has become an industry juggernaut. Already a $16.48 billion market, money is projected to continue pouring in at an annual rate of 27% over the next four years. And as the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week, the number of servers deployed in...
 

NYC Declare War on Watertreatment's 'Public Enemy Number One'
June 30, 2010

72 days later, the BP oil spill remains a severe economic and ecological threat along the Gulf Coast, and the problems continue to mount. There are tropical storms to worry about, animals to rescue, industries to save, and several reports are now focusing on the oil's interaction with the region's 'dead zone.'