Robert Krim

Bob Krim is a leading expert on the factors that have driven and continue to drive Boston (and Massachusetts) to be the most innovative city in the US.. He authored with Alan Earls Boston Made: From Revolution to Robotics: Innovations that Changed the World.

His revelations about Boston have been made into a permanent exhibit at Boston’s Logan Airport Terminal C From Massachusetts to the World: Four Centuries of Innovation which draws millions of visitors each year. .

Founding and leading the Boston History and Innovation Collaborative, he put together a multi-university research team to comb through the region’s 400-year history for clues. For a dozen years, they engaged with hundreds of organizations and businesses to understand why nearly four hundred innovations that truly changed the nation or the world were developed in Greater Boston and not somewhere else. Krim raised $9 million to fund the Innovation research and the Collaborative.

The Collaborative found five drivers working together – “The Bump and Connect” based on 450 innovations originating in Boston/Mass that changed the nation or the world which explained why this region is so innovative.

Most recently he co-founded the Innovation Trail a 2- hour guided tour through Kendall Sq and Downtown Boston of 21 sites of innovations which originated here and changed the nation or the world. Boston Magazine awarded the Trail tour as “the Best Walking Trail” In Boston in its Best of Boston July ’23 special edition.

Earlier (2000-2008) he had developed a bus tour, Innovation Odyssey of Boston and Cambridge which was enlivened by a talented actors, that explored the sites of many of Boston most intriguing innovations. Very popular, the tour operated for a eight years and inspired creation of a children’s book – What’s the Big Idea?, as well as a play at the Boston Children’s Museum by the same name..

For much of his professional life he started and led two successful businesses. After the Great Recession of ’08, he taught for a decade at Clark University and became a tenured professor at Framingham State University. Now, a semi-retired professor at Framingham State Krim teaches Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and founded the “co-working” Entrepreneur Innovation Center


He has a BA from Harvard, Cum Laude studied Economic History at London School of Economics, earned a Masters in US History at University of California-Berkeley, a Masters in Economics, a Joint PhD/MBA (Organization Studies) from Boston College. He lives in Newton Center with his MD wife Kathy Anderson.