Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) is reporting results of the Regional Economic Development and Core Competencies survey performed recently. A key means of promoting economic growth is developing an environment and infrastructure that encourages and supports innovation. In October 2013, the Economic Development Committee was provided a report on healthcare business competition by Tallwave.
Tallwave also presented to the MAG Management Committee in November 2013. During this meeting, the Management Committee suggested collecting an inventory of core competencies of the region’s jurisdictions to assist Tallwave in its efforts and to include local governments. Donna Kent, Senior Vice President of Venture Development and High Tide for Tallwave provided a report on the survey results and identified key strengths and opportunity areas for moving forward.
In her remarks, Ms. Kent noted that since 2011, Arizona has claimed the number one, two or three spot as an early start up environment. She noted, however, that the state continues to fall off significantly during the phases of scaling and commercialization of companies. As a result, cities in Arizona have a key opportunity to capture and embrace early stage companies to help keep them and grow them locally.
By working with Tallwave or an accelerator, cities are able to facilitate greater opportunities for commercialization and expansion of early stage companies in their community. One area that Tallwave is currently trying to address is an innovation gap, which includes the lack of consistent seed and Series A investors as well as systems of execution to decrease risk in seed stage ventures.
To build an innovation economy, an increase in early venture companies, more commercialization, better alignment among key players and identifying a strategy at the government level will be needed.