Fast forward: five to thrive

The engines that could drive the economy for the next 20 years

When Helen Greiner was pitching investors on her business idea in the early 1990s, they could hardly have been less interested. Greiner and Colin Angle were recent MIT grads who wanted to build robots to assist bomb squads and soldiers and fly on NASA missions to distant planets.

"Venture capitalists told us that it sounded too much like science fiction," says Greiner. "They told us that they gave at the office," brushing off the investment opportunity as nothing more than a charitable donation.

Last year, the company that Greiner, Angle, and one of their MIT professors started, iRobot Corp. of Burlington, earned $249 million selling hazardous-duty robots to the military and floor-cleaning robots to consumers.

Now, says Greiner, chairman of a profitable 450-person company that anchors New England's expanding robotics cluster, venture capitalists call her to ask, " 'Hey, do you know of any other robotics companies we should look at?' "

New industries spring up like that: in white spaces where no one could have previously imagined a single company surviving.

"Figuring out where the next important set of innovations will come from is always like predicting the next lightning strike - well, we know it'll come from the sky, and it'll hit the ground," says Bill Warner, an entrepreneur who started Avid Technology, a company that introduced computers to film and television editing.

With that caveat, here are a few areas where new industries may be taking shape.

CLEAN TECH In a former textile mill in Lowell, employees at Konarka Technologies are developing ways to make solar cells more efficiently. They're part of a cluster of companies working on new ways to wring power from the sun and wind, or to transform organic materials into biofuels.

"Clean energy absolutely has the potential to become one of the next big economic engines for the Commonwealth, with the right care and feeding," says Nick d'Arbeloff, executive director of the New England Clean Energy Council.

REPLACEMENT ORGANS Abiomed Inc. of Danvers has received international attention for its plastic-and-titanium replacement heart, the AbioCor. A second generation of the product, 30 percent smaller than the original and designed to operate inside a patient for as long as five years, could begin human trials soon. But start-ups trying to develop other kinds of artificial organs, sometimes incorporating living cells, have hit brick walls. Investors poured hundreds of millions into companies working on devices to take over for failing livers, pancreases, and kidneys. Still, high-profile research continues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Massachusetts General Hospital. And industry pioneer Barry Solomon, who began developing an artificial pancreas in the 1980s, believes that breakthroughs will come with time - and more money. "When you get a curve thrown at you and you need to repeat a clinical trial," Solomon says, "you're talking tens of millions of dollars."

PEER-TO-PEER FINANCE Fidelity Investments persuaded millions of Americans to add mutual funds to their portfolios, making the Johnson family billionaires in the process. But does the financial-services giant understand how the Facebook generation wants to manage its money? Companies like Framingham start-up Geezeo are creating free online tools to help younger consumers establish and reach financial goals. A Facebook application allows friends to contribute money or encouragement toward a goal like "Buy a Volvo C70." Another local company, Circle Lending, set out to administer loans made among friends and family. The Waltham firm was acquired last May by Virgin, the conglomerate controlled by Richard Branson.

RIDE SHARING Zipcar Inc. of Cambridge merged last year with its only national car-sharing rival, lending credence to its claim to be the biggest car-sharing business in the world, renting to 180,000 members at affordable hourly rates. Reservations can be made via PC or cellphone and cars checked out with a simple swipe of a membership card - no more waiting in line at the local Avis franchise. Now, two Massachusetts companies are trying to introduce similar accessibility - at slightly higher prices - to the world of private aviation with "air taxi" services. Linear Air, headquartered near Hanscom Field, will soon take delivery of its fourth small jet; it uses its fleet to shuttle people around the Northeast. Pogo Jet, based in Chicopee, has as its chief executive Robert Crandall, longtime head of American Airlines, and aims to start flying next year.

ROBOTS FOR ALL Massachusetts has become a breeding ground for robotic fish, lobsters, and dogs - most of them developed as research projects for the military. Companies like Kiva Systems of Woburn are trying to introduce squat, rolling robots to the warehouse to fetch inventory, and iRobot is beginning to think beyond home robots that keep the floors clean. "Today, it's robots doing chores," says Greiner, "but eventually, with the aging demographic, we think you'll see robots start taking care of the people in the home." According to the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council, there are already more than 150 companies, research labs, and other institutions working on robotics in the state - a few of them created by employees who gained experience at iRobot before setting off on their own.

Scott Kirsner can be reached at kirsner@pobox.com.