This is New Tech City, WNYC's weekly look at how technology is changing the way we live.

I'm Anouche Summeroni.

I've been thinking about how big national tech and science programs can get the public

excited and spawn new industries.

The Apollo project put a man on the moon and also eventually gave us the CAT scan.

It's said that every dollar spent on mapping the human genome has returned $140 to the

U.S. economy, and government money can be crucial to getting those smaller tech companies

off the ground too.

Did you know that the founders of Google got early support from the National Science Foundation?

Most recently, President Obama announced a new $100 million initiative to map the human

brain.

I don't want the next job creating discoveries to happen in China or India or Germany.

I want them to happen right here in the United States of America.

And that's part of what this brain initiative is about.

So you'd think that as a leading center for neuroscience research, New York City is

totally poised to be the next center for growing science-based businesses.

But while doing some research, our reporter Ilya Maritz discovered New York City has

never had much luck at growing businesses with a science bent.

He went to find out why and got his mind read in the process.

San Diego, Silicon Valley, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

These are the places where scientific researchers are spinning off lots of new companies.

To find this in New York, you have to look harder.

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