Now that it’s upending the way you play music, cook, shop, hear the news and check the weather, the friendly voice emanating from your Amazon Alexa-enabled smart speaker is poised to wriggle its way into all things health care.

Brandon Weber stood in front of a group of Sacramento entrepreneurs and local leaders, including Mayor Darrell Steinberg, and confronted a truth: Efforts to support the regional chapter of the California Innovation Hub have slowed in recent years.

Sacramento boasted of being one of the first four test cities for Verizon’s 5G network, with officials calling it a major step toward the future. But nearly a year after launch, none of the city’s eight council districts have full 5G coverage — and it isn’t clear when any of them will.

In September 2018, a Davis-based Community Choice Aggregation option known as Valley Clean Energy offered to extend its service to Winters and West Sacramento, months after launching in Woodland, Davis and unincorporated Yolo County.

Nationally, large restaurant chains are automating aspects of their service as a cost-saving mechanism. How is this trend playing out in the Capital Region? 

Pamela Marrone, CEO and founder of Marrone Bio Innovations, on biotech innovation. 

Telehealth is on the rise throughout the Capital Region, with video visits that save patients and hospitals both time and money. But can it reach the patients who need it the most?

Local edtech innovators aren’t trying to blow up traditional educational models. At a time when edtech funding models are on the decline, local founders are bootstrapping solutions to existing classroom needs. 

Community choice aggregators are the latest test of whether local, publicly run ventures can deliver cheaper and cleaner power than their investor-owned counterparts. But electricity procurement can be a fickle industry.

Manufacturing is too important to ignore, and the Capital Region needs to harness this sector for prosperity