PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Sergio Ferreira felt out of place last winter at the so-called NERD Center in Cambridge, Mass. A nerd, he is not: He and his family run a concrete business in East Providence.

But there he was at Microsoft’s New England Research and Development Center, alongside graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Business School, giving his loosely practiced 60-second pitch for a new business.

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