National Roundtable on American Economy Focuses on Innovation Economics Successes

PRLog (Press Release) – Apr 28, 2008 – Washington, D. C. The Capital Formation Institute, (CFI), a Washington DC-based economic research and advocacy group for innovation economics, sponsored its second national roundtable discussion of innovation tools to drive community economic development on April 22, 2008.

Venture capitalists and economic development professionals from around the country met in the hour-long teleconference to discuss successes of the new innovation economic model implemented in Northern California and Littleton, Colorado.

“It has taken years for the two regions to build a strong business networking infrastructure to support new venture creation,” said Thomas Vass, of Raleigh, N. C., one of the CFI moderators. “These achievements show that the innovation economic model works.  We cannot afford to dawdle over an old economic growth model that does not work anymore and watch the national economic crisis become worse.”  

Roger Akers, Managing Partner of Akers Capital, a Sacramento, California venture capital firm, and Jon Gregory, CEO of Golden Capital Network, described how their communities had built a new economic growth platform in California.

Akers works closely with Jon Gregory on innovation initiatives throughout northern California.  He addressed five key components implemented in his region. The first, and most important component was a public education and media relations initiative to promote the economic benefits of the innovation economic development model. “Public and business leaders in our community did not know why or how technological innovation works as a growth strategy,” said Akers.

Gregory described the “five buckets of economic tools’ he uses in each metro region to stimulate economic growth and job creation: public visibility of the efforts to create new ventures, business networking, mentoring new ventures, available private capital and a pool of successful senior managers to form management teams for new ventures.

“Having a pool of the right senior management talent to lead new ventures is critically important,” said Gregory.

Chris Gibbons, Director of Business/Industry Affairs for Littleton, Colorado, described the set of sophisticated business marketing and competitive intelligence programs his agency uses to support the success of new ventures. “We provide a range of support services to our business clients that we can deliver effectively, and we carefully limit our support to those areas that government can do well, and let the private sector do its job,” he said.

Dan Loague, Executive Director of CFI, said the participation of more than 100 economic development professionals in two national innovation economics roundtables shows a clear and growing concern about the signs of decline in America competitiveness. “Local leaders tell us they are concerned that the national economy is off-track,” said Loague. “They feel that the longer the delay in making a commitment to innovation economics, the more difficult their job becomes to help create local jobs and wealth.”