Sarah Langer Hall: Innovate GSO is only beginning – Greensboro News & Record

Building a communitys inclusive innovation economy is hard work, but cities across the state can learn from Greensboros lead.

Nearly two years ago, a small team from Greensboro responded to a request from the Institute for Emerging Issues (IEI) at N.C. State University to participate in InnovateNC, a first-in-the-nation effort to spark innovation statewide.

If selected, they would join other cities from across the state in a cross-city learning collaborative from September 2015-June 2017.

The catch: They had to have at least some entrepreneurial and innovation assets already in place, and they had to be willing to form a diverse innovation council committed to the idea of inclusion. Inclusivity occurs when the local innovation economy actively recruits and engages what are traditionally under-connected individuals such as women and minorities in ways that build social capital across diverse networks.

Greensboro earned its place in the InnovateNC program, along with Asheville, Wilson, Pembroke, Wilmington and the Carolina Coast. These communities came together eight times over the two-year program for meetings and community-hosted site visits. They also advanced the work in their communities, meeting monthly as a council to drive data collection, strategic planning and policy efforts, and communicate the innovation stories of their communities.

An executive committee of public and private partners led the work locally. Mayor Nancy Vaughan was committed to the initiative from the outset, and Councilwoman Nancy Hoffmann actively participated on the councils executive committee. She joined Robin Coger, N.C. A&T; Cindy Thompson, Boundless Impact; Paul Jeffrey, Cone Health; Sudakar Puvvada, VF Corp.; and Lou Anne Flanders-Stec, Launch Greensboro. Deborah Hooper of the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce and Bryan Toney, formerly of UNC-Greensboro, provided critical leadership as council co-chairs.

Stephanie Walker and Ditra Miller were brought on to facilitate the work of the council. A complete list of council members is available at innovategso.org.

Greensboro has focused its efforts on purposefully engaging under-connected populations to unleash design innovation for economic growth. Under-connected populations college students, people of color, immigrants, millennials, encorepreneurs (boomers looking for a next gig), retirees, scientists, artists, academic professionals and international visa holders lacking those key relationships and connectivity to the people, information and resources necessary to successfully launch and sustain new businesses Greensboro aims to change that. The vision is to create a design destination that attracts, develops and retains diverse creative talent and enterprises.

While the work has not been easy, it has been rewarding.

InnovateGSO has enabled honest, thoughtful, and intentional conversations about the connection between Greensboros economic aspirations and our communitys inclusive innovation capacity, said Robin Coger, dean of the College of Engineering at N..C A&T. This would not have occurred without the engagement of the diverse group of people (and perspectives) of our projects Innovation Council. It is a wonderful time to be a part of Greensboro.

Ten public-private partners committed in-kind tools, services and support to help build capacity within these communities. The partnership included the RTP Foundation, Forward Impact, the N.C. Department of Commerces Board of Science, Technology & Innovation, RTI International, UNC-TV, CED, the UNC system and programs at N.C. State University, UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke University.

One key tool communities used was the InnovateNC Community Innovation Asset Map, a first of-its-kind, turnkey tool for communities of all sizes who wish to assess the quality and inclusiveness of their innovation ecosystems. The Asset Map proved to be the communitys critical first step in helping them to develop a concrete road map to growing their innovation economies in a meaningful way. As such, the Asset Map was refined for a broader audience and made available to all communities across the state on June 8. Communities are encouraged to take advantage of these unique resources by visiting InnovateNC.org to learn more about the initiative, download the Asset Map, and begin putting this tool to work in their innovation economies.

On behalf of the statewide partners, Id like to share that its been a pleasure working with such a motivated and forward-thinking Greensboro team. While InnovateNC is coming to a planned end, the work in Greensboro is only just beginning.

We are confident in their success and believe their efforts will become an inspirational case study and model for other communities across the nation seeking to fuel their economic engines by building inclusive innovation.

Sarah Langer Hall is a policy manager at Institute for Emerging Issues at N.C. State University, and leads the InnovateNC initiative.