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A Message from Carlos Gutierrez Building Innovation-Driven Regional Economies in Small and Mid-Sized Metro Centers Creating Systems for Entrepreneur Support Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Rural America Kentucky’s Rural Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program: An In-Depth Look at How It Works  The Importance of Networks and Capacity Building in Technology Transfer and Commercialization
Best Practices in University Technology Transfer
A 21st Century Model for Engineering Education
Turning the Corner: Trends in Angel Investing Growing Ohio’s High Performance Economy Replanting the Economic Forest in Northeast Ohio Subscribe
About Economic Development America
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Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Rural America (cont.)
The project was based on a number of principles, including:
Many exciting ideas and approaches were generated by this project, including unusual partnerships among institutions that rarely, if ever, work together. Nearly 40 of the collaboratives were led by universities or community colleges reaching out to communities and other agencies to offer the possibility of the transfer of skills and technologies across rural regions. Some included major research and development facilities, such as NASA in New Mexico and the National Surface Warfare Center in Indiana. Others focused on facilitating entrepreneurship and innovation in specific sectors such as sustainable agriculture, life sciences or alternative energy. Still others saw new technologies as central to connecting entrepreneurs and their ideas to markets. One state in which great interest was generated by the Kellogg project is Kentucky, where there are many groundbreaking institutions and programs designed to support entrepreneurs.3 One of these is The Innovation Group, an initiative of the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation based in Lexington. The Innovation Group, through a contract with the Kentucky Department of Innovation and Commercialization for a Knowledge Based Economy, manages a network of six Innovation and Commercialization Centers (ICCs) housed in universities across the state. Three ICCs serve primarily rural regions and assist entrepreneurs with refining business strategies and commercialization plans. ICCs in turn are supported by seven regional Innovation Centers (not administered by The Innovation Group). These Centers provide initial assistance to entrepreneurs that is geared to the special challenges faced by rural communities in the new economy.
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More recently, considerable momentum has been given by the Kellogg Foundation’s major project with CFED on Entrepreneurship Development Systems in Rural America. Through a rigorous competitive process, this project sought to identify rural regions where collaborative systems have been or could be developed to promote and support entrepreneurship as a coherent rural economic development strategy. Almost 2,000 organizations and institutions spanning the public, private and nonprofit sectors came together in over 180 collaboratives to be part of the process. The Kellogg Foundation soon will be announcing which four of these will receive up to $2 million each to create and expand their systems.