Adult 'science fair' mixes innovation, savvy networking

"The story behind this is that there was this guy named Wally Berry . . . like blueberry," Boehm began, stretching the arm of the device. It's an antileak valve invented by Berry after he became frustrated with a leaky toilet. And the gizmo was developed using software made by Boehm's Boston company, Invention Machine Corp.

Across the room, IBM Software Group representatives demonstrated a black box, called Lotus Foundations, that can help small businesses manage their information technology needs. And upstairs, a husband and wife team talked up Xelago, their new Internet review and recommendation service. MBA students from Babson College took it all in.

Twitter, the popular social-networking platform, blogs, and e-mails brought most of them here - to the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation in Waltham - for the first Mass Innovation Nights, a new monthly networking and product-sharing event that organizer Bobbie Carlton describes as a science fair for adults.

"I'm powering this all through Twitter and blogs and Facebook and LinkedIn," Carlton said. "I sent out some tweets [Twitter posts] that basically said, 'I am looking for some cool companies that want to launch their products at an event. It's totally free. Let's have a party.' "

The approach worked.

"I tweet about what IBM is doing all the time," said Karen Lilla, a spokeswoman for IBM Software Group, who said she learned of Mass Innovation Nights through Twitter.

It was the same for Invention Machine, said Boehm, the company's vice president of marketing and strategy.

"Parna is the Twitterati," Boehm said of his colleague, Parna Sarkar, who caught a tweet about the event. "It's a natural fit for us: a gathering of people who talk about innovation."

On Wednesday, Carlton moved around the Charles River museum, chatting up some of the 160 people in attendance and occasionally ringing a bell to announce product demonstrations.

"Not bad for the Red Sox playing and Passover," Carlton said, surveying the crowd. With 20 years of high-tech marketing and public relations experience, Carlton said she's hoping the monthly meet-up will help connect companies and consumers, as well as employers and job-seekers.

"The idea is let's help each other out. Let's help out the companies that are local and introducing new products," she said. "Let's help out the people who are looking for jobs. Maybe it'll work."

The chance to network attracted David Howell, chief operating officer of Practical Solar Inc., a Boston company that makes heliostats - mirror systems that harvest sunlight for various uses, including heating and natural lighting.

"We'll take all the free advertising we can get," Howell joked.

Invention Machine also attracted some attention, as did Xelago. The two companies seemed to be the coolest, according to the five Babson students who attended, who said they could envision themselves using the technology.

Liz and Brentan Alexander, the couple behind Xelago, launched www.xelago.com a few weeks ago. Brentan Alexander likens it to Yelp, a popular online platform for customer reviews, but with a key difference: If users give wildly different reviews of an attraction or restaurant, Xelago can rank them - using personal data of the reviewer and the person searching for information - to determine which reviews should carry the most weight.

"Hopefully, they'll tell all their friends," Liz Alexander said of the Babson students and their interest in the new technologies.

It sounded like they plan on spreading the word.

"Invention Machine is sweet," said Craig Wing, a first-year MBA student at Babson.

"I'm definitely going to use Xelago," added classmate Sean Gillispie.

Erin Ailworth can be reached at eailworth@globe.com.