Good morning,

Want to get smarter about AI — or even get credentialed?

Massachusetts businesses and residents can now access free artificial intelligence and career AI certificate training from Google, Gov. Maura Healey announced yesterday.

The online courses include the new Google AI Professional Certificate, focused on practical, in-demand skills and the Google Career Certificates program.

The goal: boost the state’s competitiveness, help small businesses that don’t have big training budgets and give workers real tools to use AI for brainstorming, research, writing, content creation and even app building.

"We're really focusing economic development and investment in making Massachusetts the applied AI capital of the United States," Healey said.

The governor told the BBJ’s Lucia Maffei she even plans to sign up.

"I'm going to take the class," Healey said. "I’m not a technologist, and even I could do it... This is a great tool, and I hope people take advantage of it."

Details and sign up on  MA AI Hub website .

$400M investment in research shows life

There’s also hopeful news for another Healey initiative aimed at boosting the state’s economic competitiveness.

The Globe’s Jon Chesto reports that a long-stalled push to curb brain drain and bolster research at Massachusetts universities and medical centers may finally be gaining traction on Beacon Hill.

Healey’s DRIVE bill — Discovery, Research & Innovation in a Vibrant Economy — would invest up to $400 million in research funding and with a goal of creating thousands of new jobs.

Massachusetts is home to one in every 10 jobs in research and development in the U.S. But DRIVE has been stuck in neutral since last July. And it’s both surprising and shortsighted that lawmakers haven’t responded with much urgency, given the White House’s desire to suffocate eds and meds.

However this week, Economic Development Secretary Eric Paley said the bill is close to being reported out of the Legislature’s economic development committee, Chesto reports.

(A reminder that Paley will join us at our life science event in Watertown on March 10.)

Chestnut Hill development may lack votes to proceed

A major proposed mixed-use development in a mostly vacant office park on Route 9 just over the Newton line appears to be in trouble.

For two years, Brookline town leaders have touted City Realty’s project as the town’s great hope for growing much-needed commercial tax revenue.

But the opposition has solidified even as City Reality has scaled back its original plan four times, according to Sam Mintz at Brookline News.

The latest version cuts the tallest of three buildings from the original 20 to 14 stories and includes a 200-room hotel, 140 apartments, 126 condos, 168,000 SF of medical office space and 55,000 SF of retail.

And it’s projected to bring in more than $5 million annually in new taxes at time when the town faces a budget crisis is gearing up ask voters for yet another property tax override.

But City Reality needs a two-thirds Town Meeting vote for a zoning change and “likely faces an uphill battle,” Mintz adds.

Friday grab bag

• Newton’s former Economic Development Director, John Sisson, has been hired for a similar role by the Town of Needham.  A few years back, the opposite happened: Newton hired Devra Bailin from Needham.
  
  
• Here’s what businesses need to know about the possibility of receiving a tariff refund following last week’s Supreme Court ruling from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
  
  
• Senator Becca Rausch will host a Small Business Roundtable with the Chair of the Committee on Financial Services, Sen. Paul Feeney, March 6, 11 a.m. If you are a Needham business owner who wants to make your voice heard, RSVP to aidan.doherty@masenate.gov.
  
  
• Watertown’s Max Ritcey of Ritcey East was Congresswoman Katherine Clark’s guest during a virtual event that coincided with this week’s State of Union Address. Ritcey and others shared concerns about the impact of federal policies on schools, science, seniors, small business, the care workforce and just trying to make ends meet.
  
  
• I can’t wait to hear what the three candidates running for two seats on the Wellesley Select Board will have to say about the proposal at MassBay Community College at their virtual debate this morning (Fri.) at 10 a.m.  Max Woolf is moderating and we will record it. Register. (My view is here.)
  
  
• NanoDx,  a Watertown biotech at 66 Galen St., is a finalist for this year’s Team Massachusetts Economic Impact Awards. The company is developing rapid, point-of-care molecular diagnostics that detect infectious diseases in minutes, not days.
  
  
• WBUR explores the remarkable transformation of the Coolidge Corner Theater under the leadership of Executive Director, CEO and cool person Katherine Tallman, who is retiring tomorrow after 13 years.
  
  
• Crunch & Boba is planning to open at 1385 Washington Street, the site of the former Shogun restaurant in West Newton. (Fig City News)
  
  
• The Sweetish Fish, a Swedish candy shop is opening its first permanent brick-and-mortar location at The Street Chestnut Hill this spring. (Newton Patch)
  
  
• What does the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution and the FIFA World Cup, mean for our communities, the economy and perhaps your business? Join us March 13 for a conversation with Martha J. Sheridan, President & CEO of Meet Boston.Details

State ed leader floats post-strike rule change

Two years after Newton’s 11-day teachers strike disrupted families and their employers, a Newton-based state education leader has a new idea to discourage future walkouts: don’t make up the missed days.

Former Newton School Committee Chair and current state Board of Education Vice Chair Matt Hills is urging the state to empower districts to seek waivers from the 180-day school year requirement when days are lost to an illegal strike, reports Sam Drysdale at State House News.

Even though teachers are not legally allowed to strike, they are the only public union members who get paid for time missed due to a strike because missed days are typically tacked onto the end of the school year.

Newton’s strike make-up days saw absentee rates seven to eight times higher than normal, according to Hills.

Spring is coming, so is the 'Seasonings'

It may seem overly optimistic to encourage you to reserve your ticket for "Spring Seasonings: A Taste of Our Towns" when there are two+ feet of snow on the ground.

But spring will come. Promise.

And when it arrives, you'll want to be at the Newton Marriott Ballroom on April 13, raising a glass with 40 of our region's top restaurants and beverage purveyors — and laughing together about the winter that tried to break us.

This event always sells out. Reserve your tickets now — for your employees, your best customers and, mostly, for yourself.

You’ve earned it.

That’s what you need to know for today, unless you need to know, do you have to be polite to AI?  (Spoiler: NFW, but be careful if you work for Burger King.)

See you next week!

Greg Reibman (he, him)

President & CEO

Charles River Regional Chamber

617.244.1688

P.S. If you appreciate our advocacy, events or even this newsletter, we’d appreciate it if you’d take two minutes to post a Google Review for the Charles River Chamber here. Thanks.

Max Woolf contributed to today’s newsletter.