I’m a big fan of all things tech and Boston. So here’s my own personal Boston Nerd Tour. It has been edited for brevity; for the expanded version, visit my personal blog: High Tech in the Hub, http://www.hightechinthehub.com/2017/08/boston-nerd-tour/ --- Image Attribution outside of public domain: 12: BCadam CC BY-SA 3.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrepreneur_Walk_of_Fame#/media/File:Hewlett_and_Packard_stars.jpg 14: John Phelan / Wikimedia Commons https://www.museeum.com/museum/mit-museum/ 16: Quora https://www.quora.com/Massachusetts-Institute-of-Technology-MIT-What-do-MIT-students-think-of-the-Rogers-building 18: John Phelan Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MIT_Building_10_and_the_Great_Dome,_Cambridge_MA.jpg 20: MIT List Visual Arts Center https://listart.mit.edu/public-art-map/fairchild-buildings 22: Rau1654 CC BY-SA 3.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIT_Computer_Science_and_Artificial_Intelligence_Laboratory#/media/File:Stata_Center1.jpg 24: Daderot Wiki Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:B_and_B_Chemical_Company,_780_Memorial_Drive,_Cambridge,_MA_-_IMG_2955.JPG 26: Petrocchi Construction http://petrocchidcd.com/project_item/harvard-university-maxwell-dworkin-laboratory/ 28- Daderot Wiki commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harvard_University_Science_Center_-_panorama.jpg 30- Dan4th Nicholas CC2.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2006_newsstand_Cambridge_Massachusetts_USA_150445218.jpg 32- MALERIE YOLEN-COHEN http://www.getawaymavens.com/boston-ma-immersed-in-art/ 34: Daderot Wiki Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kresge_-_Harvard_Business_School_-_DSC02998.JPG 36: Cabot & Forbes http://ccfne.com/?portfolio=raytheon-bbn-technologies 40: Dr. Jonathan E. Goldberg http://www.lifechangesgroup.com/site/directions/brookline-ss-pierce-building-1024x725/ 42: John Phelan CC BY-SA 3.0 Wiki Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sandy_Pond,_Lincoln_MA.jpg 44: Rayethon http://www.raytheon.com/ourcompany/rtnwcm/groups/public/documents/image/rtn-ghq2-small.jpg 46: Cushman & Wakefield http://cushwakeboston.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/25corporatedrive.jpg 48: Glassdoor https://media.glassdoor.com/l/347032/mit-lincoln-laboratory-office.jpg 50: Glassdoor https://www.glassdoor.com/Overview/Working-at-Bose-EI_IE3098.11,15.htm 52: Mill & Main http://mill-and-main.com/news/town-maynard-lauds-increase-occupancy-mill-main/ 54: Boston Globe https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/10/12/local-officials-fret-about-what-emc-sale-will-mean-for-massachusetts/RsZJSBAeyGgaDMW275kVIK/story.html 56: Emw CC BY-SA 3.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Laboratories#/media/File:Cross_Point_Towers;_northeast_side;_Lowell,_MA;_2011-09-11.JPG 58: Lisa Shea CC BY-SA 3.0 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddard_Rocket_Launching_Site Map photos provided by Google Map

1. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>

2. I’m a big fan of all things tech and
Boston. So here’s my own personal
Boston Nerd Tour. It has been edited for
brevity; for the expanded version, visit
my personal blog:
High Tech in the Hub.
Out of towners­— enjoy this intro to
Beantown, from the geek point of view!
Locals­— Remember, in addition to being
one of the most beautiful cities in the
world, your home has been pivotal to
the tech world.
ABOUT ME >>
Joe Kinsella
CTO and Founder,
CloudHealh Technologies

3. This Tour benefited from many external contributors. Thanks
to Boston History & Innovation Collaborative, Dr. Bob Krim,
Associate Professor & Founder of the Entrepreneur Innovation
Center at Framingham State University, and all of you who
helped crowdsource and offered input.
Did I miss a site? If you have a suggestion, or just would like to
chat more about this project, feel free to post a comment to the
original blog post, which appeared on High Tech in the Hub.
THANK YOU >>

4. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
THE TELEPHONE
Boston, MA
This small plaque in front of the John F. Kennedy
Building on Cambridge Street commemorates
the first transmission of sound over wires at the
laboratory that once stood here. Side note: Bell’s
future chief engineer was also from Boston.

5. >>

6. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
1ST VENTURE WIN
Boston, MA
ARDC, the first publicly traded venture capital
firm, was founded by George Doriot­— known as
the “father of venture capitalism.” This location was
George’s house, where the deal was done.

7. >>

8. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
GEORGE CHURCH’S LAB
Boston, MA
The Wyss Institute at Harvard University is home
to George Church, known for genome engineering.
He successfully copied woolly mammoth genes
into the genome of an Asian elephant in 2015.

9. >>

10. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
LOTUS DEVELOPMENT CORP
Cambridge, MA
The office park you are looking at was formerly
the worldwide headquarters of Lotus Corporation.
Think of Lotus as the Microsoft of Massachusetts.
And if Microsoft had sucked a little more, the
company might still be here today.

11. >>

12. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
ENTREPRENEUR WALK OF FAME
Cambridge, MA
Instead of celebrating movie actors like Danny
DeVito, it celebrates tech entrepreneurs. Last time
I walked by the Entrepreneur Walk of Fame it
had seven stars: Edison, Gates, Hewlett, Packard,
Kapor, Swanson and Jobs.
Image courtesy of BCadam CC BY-SA 3.0

13. >>

14. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
MIT MUSEUM
Cambridge, MA
You can see exhibits from MIT’s work on advanced
radar in World War II, their pioneering work in
robotics and artificial intelligence, and even
exhibits from the “Steve Jobs of Boston,” Edwin
Land.
Image courtesy of John Phelan

15. >>

16. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
MIT
Cambridge, MA
MIT is known as one of the top research
universities in the US, creating such well known
technologies as GPS, the first computer game,
doppler radar, the spreadsheet, the FAX machine,
voice recognition, and much much more.
Image courtesy of Quora

17. >>

18. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
RAD LAB
Cambridge, MA
In the summer of 1940, Winston Churchill sent
his country’s most secret scientific breakthrough
team to the US, resulting in the creation of the
Radiation Laboratory at MIT (“RAD Lab”), which
some historians credit with winning the war.
Image courtesy of John Phelan

19. >>

20. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
1ST VIDEO GAME
Cambridge, MA
In 1961, Steve Russell and friends used the
PDP-1 to create Spacewar!, the first computer
video game. If you played the arcade game Galaxy
(1971) or Atari Asteroids (1979), you were playing
a later generation of Spacewar!.
Image courtesy of MIT List Visual Arts Center

21. >>

22. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
MIT COMPUTER SCIENCE AND ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE LABORATORY
Cambridge, MA
While Elon Musk is busy worrying artificial
intelligence will take over the world, MIT’s CSAIL
is busy doing research. One the most notable
researchers here is none other than Tim Berners-
Lee, creator of the World Wide Web.
Image courtesy of Raul654

23. >>

24. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
POLAROID BUILDING
Cambridge, MA
Edwin Land came to Boston in 1927 to attend
Harvard, dropped out to start the company
that became known as Polaroid (what is it with
entrepreneurs dropping out of Harvard?).
Image courtesy of Daderot

25. >>

26. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
HARVARD COMPUTATION LABORATORY
Cambridge, MA
It was here the earliest computer scientists of
Boston worked, and where the first “bug” report
was filed: a moth stuck between relays in the
machine.
Image courtesy of Harvard University

27. >>

28. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
THE HARVARD MARK I
Cambridge, MA
The Harvard Science Center houses part of the
original Harvard Mark I computer. Weighing
in at 10K pounds and consisting of over 765K
electromechanical components, the Mark I was
basically one of the first programmable calculators.
Image courtesy of Daderot

29. >>

30. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
MICROSOFT GETS ITS START
Cambridge, MA
In 1974, a visit to the Harvard Square newsstand
showed Honeywell programmer Paul Allen and
friend Bill Gates that the personal computer
revolution had begun. And yes, Bill Gates, co-
founder and longtime CEO of Microsoft, like all
great entrepreneurs, dropped out of Harvard.
Image courtesy of Dan4th Nicholas

31. >>

32. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
ZUCK GOES WEST
Cambridge, MA
Henrietta’s Table’s most famous dinner was
in 2004, when Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo
Saverin (who?) met a senior associate from a
Boston venture capitalist to invest in thefacebook
before Mark and team headed west.
Image courtesy of Malerie Yolen-Cohen/ Gentaway Mavens

33. >>

34. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL
Cambridge, MA
People who have not raised venture capital may
be surprised to learn that a whopping 26% of
VCs have attended HBS. But people who have
raised venture capital in our industry (e.g. me), are
always surprised to learn it’s not 100%.
Image courtesy of Daderot

35. >>

36. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
EMAIL & THE INTERNET
Cambridge, MA
BBN started as an acoustic consulting firm that
was best known for examining the 18.5 missing
minutes from the Watergate tapes. But BBN and
its founders had another claim to fame: fostering
the earliest idea for a computer network that
would eventually become the internet.
Image courtesy of Cabot, Cabot & Forbes

37. >>

38. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
THE VISICALC ATTIC
Arlington, MA
Most people don’t realize the original “killer app”
was created here in Boston. Yes, in the attic of this
Arlington house, Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston
wrote VisiCalc, the very first spreadsheet.
Image courtesy of Zillow

39. >>

40. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
THE FIRST INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER
Brookline, MA
In November 1989, Software Tool & Die
launched The World, providing its customers
PPP dial-up, email and access to the Usenet
(the Reddit of its time).
Image courtesy of Dr. Jonathan E. Goldberg

41. >>

42. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
HOME OF VENTURE CAPITAL
Waltham, MA
It’s not much to look at today, but not long ago
this was the Sand Hill of Boston. Like its Silicon
Valley equivalent, there was a time when every
venture firm that mattered was within walking
distance of this location.
Image courtesy of John Phelan

43. >>

44. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
THE MICROWAVE OVEN
Waltham, MA
Raytheon engineers were able to innovate their
way to raising production from 100 to 2,000
magnetrons per day. This would propel Raytheon
from $3M in revenue to the global corporation it is
today, generating $25B+ in revenue.
Image courtesy of Raytheon

45. >>

46. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
1ST SCRUM TEAM
Burlington, MA
While the company no longer exists, it has one
historical claim to fame: it was the location of the
“the first Scrum team”. Prior to “the first Scrum
team”, software was developed through a serial
process that often took years to complete. The
first standup occurred on the 3rd floor of the main
building (on left as you come down Corporate
Drive). I know because I was there.”
Image courtesy of Cushman & Wakefield

47. >>

48. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
MIT LINCOLN LAB & 128
Boston, MA
Route 128 was the first circumferential highway
in the country when the MIT Lincoln Lab opened
in 1951. Derided as the “road to nowhere”,
its distance from Boston brought it through
undeveloped farms and towns. Route 128 would
be a major catalyst for establishing eastern
Massachusetts as a tech center in the US.
Image courtesy of Glassdoor

49. >>

50. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
THE MOUNTAIN
Framingham, MA
The Mountain is currently home to the
manufacturer of the headset everyone will be
wearing on your next flight: Bose.
Image courtesy of Glassdoor

51. >>

52. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION
Maynard, MA
Many people forget that Boston was the original
Silicon Valley. One of the most successful
minicomputer companies was Digital Equipment
Corporation (DEC), which was the Apple and IBM
of its time.
Image courtesy of Mill & Main

53. >>

54. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
EMC
Hopkinton, MA
In 1979, two former Northeastern University
roommates founded EMC. By 2016 they merged
with Dell to become Dell EMC. EMC acquired and
grew VMware, one of the biggest infrastructure
companies in the world, until AWS.
Image courtesy of The Boston Globe

55. >>

56. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
THE MASSACHUSSETS MIRACLE
Lowell, MA
Selling everything from typesetters to
programmable calculators to word processors, its
entry into the minicomputer market propelled
Wang to be a global tech leader. Wang grew an
average of 61% YoY, making the company one
of the best examples of the economic growth in
the 1980s. It became know as the Massachussets
Miracle.
Image courtesy of Emw

57. >>

58. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
GODDARD ROCKET LAUNCH
Auburn, MA
At a golf course in Auburn, you’ll find two markers
commemorating Robert Goddard’s launch of the
first liquid fueled rocket in 1926. The 10 foot tall
rocket went 41 feet in the air, making Goddard
the father of modern rocketry. In spite of his
revolutionary work, he received little attention
until after his death.
Image courtesy of Lisa Shea

59. >>

60. BOSTON NERD TOUR >>
1ST WIRELESS TRANSATLANTIC TRANSMISSION
South Wellfleet, MA
This display commemorates the location of the
first wireless transatlantic transmission in 1902.
The transmission came from an antenna array
erected on top four 210 foot towers that once
stood near this site. Its most notable use came 10
years after construction when it alerted the British
Navy to the sinking of the Titanic.