The bridge between New Hampshire Manufacturing Month, which took place throughout October, and New Hampshire Technology Month, which begins today, is the 16th annual Governor’s Advanced Manufacturing and High Technology Summit (that happens tomorrow – 11/2).
It makes sense that we devote some time to highlighting these two important sectors to our economy. Both complement one another and really, you can’t have manufacturing without technology. Over the past few weeks, there has been exciting news from Granite State companies, like the space technology partnership between NASA and Nanocomp Technologies in Merrimack and the Global Aerospace Bearings Market Growth report, which listed two of our companies, New Hampshire Ball Bearings and the Timken Company as the “top-rated important players of the aerospace bearings market.”
New Hampshire is no stranger to being on the cutting edge of technology, whatever the century. As Business and Economic Affairs Commissioner Taylor Caswell noted at the recent Manufacturing Breakfast Symposium at the Belknap Mill (the only remaining example of brick/beam, exposed joists construction), mills like this one and the Amoskeag Mills in Manchester ushered in the Industrial Revolution and now high technology.
They are not knitting cotton by the mile, but “they are 3D printing kidneys and limbs,” he said, referring to the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute, which is located in the Manchester Millyard.
With the turn of the calendar page to November, we have New Hampshire Technology Month, as proclaimed by Gov. Chris Sununu, to highlight this sector, which is expected to grow by 10 percent over the next decade. There are about 26,000 people working the tech sector and the challenge is to find more of them to fill positions created by that growth.
What’s on tap for New Hampshire Technology Month? Head over to the NH Sector Partnership Initiative’s technology calendar, which is filled with tech activities.