I just attended the Tennessee Innovation Conference in nashville last week that the TN Technology Development Corp sponsored which is lead by my friend eric cromwell. The purpose of this org is really to help advance the competitiveness agenda throughout the state of TN by formally bringing a coalition of entrepreneurs, researchers, vc's, and govt leaders together. specifically the 3 main goals are to 1)deepen the R & D and commercialization base in TN, 2)accelerate entrepreneurship, and 3)increase access to risk capital.
hopefully by having statewide cohesion amongst all the partners that that will yield better economic returns for the state and to help fill some necessary gaps, but we cant be naive to think that this will just happen overnight. this process will take several years to come up with quantifiable results, and many of the stakeholders have to be hyper committed to their own local domains in order to make a difference. it was a good first step in getting some viable attendees come, that can in fact make an impact.
some of this might sound to be overly general, but there are specific organizations that we involved that will help facilitate/rollout these objectives in hopes of creating a multiplier effect on early stage development and funding. Let me know if youd like to hear more. check out their whitepaper too at TTDC.
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