Innovation Trail Walking Tour (Special Telephone + Biotech History Edition)

Join us to explore Cambridge’s ties to the 150th anniversary of the telephone and the birth of the biotech industry in 1976.

On this special fall tour, we’ll focus on the early days of the telephone in Cambridge and Somerville, 150 years ago. We’ll also touch on the emergence of the biotech field fifty years ago.

This tour includes inside tours of LabCentral (an incubator for life sciences startups, and the site of one side of the first “long distance” telephone call in 1876) as well as Akamai’s Network Operations Command Center, which analyzes internet traffic worldwide. We’ll conclude with some time for networking and snacks at Akamai’s Executive Briefing Center.

All tickets for this tour are donate-what-you-wish! (Typical tour pricing is $20/adult, $10/student.) But if you donate $40 or more, you’ll get a limited edition embroidered Innovation Trail hat. (See below for photo.) The Innovation Trail is a 501(c)3 nonprofit, with a mission to create new kinds of STEM learning experiences for people of all ages.

We start at lobby of LabCentral, 700 Main Street in Cambridge (entrance is in the rear of the building), and conclude at the headquarters of Akamai (145 Broadway, Cambridge with some beverages and snacks. Both locations are mid-way between the Kendall Square and Central Square T stops on the Red Line.

For more on The Innovation Trail, visit https://theinnovationtrail.org/